When we bought our house, we knew we had one major problem. We had two retaining walls in the back yard and they were both bowing badly. In five months the lower wall moved several inches and the final blow came when I was cutting the grass behind one wall and my leg went down in a void to me knee. Apparently, this wall was built by roving bands of chimpanzees which must have been through Pittsburgh 10 years ago. These monkeys were bad even by monkey standards.
So we called the landscaper and viola, two weeks, 20 tons of stone, two truckloads of mulch later we had our new (single) wall up. It looks great and even has a set up steps so we don't have to walk around the ends to go up a level. As a bonus, one of our neighbors gave us his kids' old play set. It's a good thing we had it done when we did, right before we went on vacation, because when we left our back yard was mud, manure and seed. By the time we returned, we had grass!
But the main reason we wanted to have the wall rebuilt was to have a safe area for the kids to play. I was worried that either the wall would collapse on someone or that someone would break a leg by "finding" a hole like I did. In the time our house was up for sale, it had become the "skate park". Various slacker-related items (parts of skateboards, snowboards, ramps, pipes, etc.) occasionally turned up on our driveway, lawn and retaining walls and I worried that one of these slackers would end up splitting his head open. At least now, I don't have to worry about the wall collapsing on them.
We've spent the last few days power washing, staining, repairing and re-fitting what will become "The Pirate Ship". We already have our "sail" and will soon put on the ship's wheel and the pirate flag. It sails in it's sea of mulch and will soon need to be officially christened. The old owner had spray painted "SK8-24-7" on the side; which I have since power washed into oblivion; so now we need to find the perfect name for our ship. Suggestions?
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