Last April our family started on the biggest project we've tackled so far (aside of remodeling our house). We wanted to enclose a courtyard space in the front yard with a concrete block stuccoed wall.
Here it is from the beginning:
This lovely view of the neighbor's house across the street is actually meant to show the trenches we had to dig before pouring our footings for the wall. (And before this happened we had to shovel away a WHOLE LOT of landscaping rocks!) These 18" deep, 12" wide trenches (approximately 70 feet of them) were dug with a whole lotta muscle - muscle from each of us, the missionaries, random youth that were long-boarding down the street, a strong young rugby player from our ward...really anyone whom we could trick into holding a shovel. There are other trenches not shown that were for irrigation and electrical purposes.
A part of the courtyard that had to be done before the space was enclosed was a smallish patio area. It was about 15' square, and will eventually be covered by a pergola. Marianne was of course assisting in the work - her dollhouse and barbie are evidence.
Once the trenches were dug and rebar was placed in them, and everything was reinforced and ready to go, we were able to pour concrete. I did some research about how to best get the job done and found that we would need to have a concrete mixer truck come with the concrete, as well as a pump truck that could get the concrete up into the yard where it needed to be. I got everything ordered and scheduled for the Saturday before Easter. Friday night at about 4pm the concrete company called and said that they would have to cancel; they didn't have enough work scheduled for the next day to justify mixing up the concrete.
I was FURIOUS. And I desperately called around to find someone who could help, with no luck. We had Rus' dad in town to help, my dad was committed to helping, and Jake and Doug were available to help too. I didn't want to waste all of the manpower that we had accumulated. Also we had rented some tools specific to working the concrete and I wanted to get our money's worth out of them. I think everyone else was relieved though, and happy that Saturday would be more restful.
I prayed that night that something would work out. In the early morning I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about our predicament. Something one of the companies had said when I called them stuck in my mind and I knew that they would be open and operating at 7am. I was ready with the phone at 7 on the dot and I was able to schedule a delivery for later that morning. It was really a miracle because the company I called had the right pump mix (a concrete mix with gravel pieces small enough to go through a pump), and the pump truck I had scheduled was still available to accommodate me. HOORAY! I was ecstatic and excitedly woke him up to hear the news. It took him about an hour before he felt the same way.
Anyway, Roger had to come help that morning after all! (He was probably the happiest when our plans had fallen through.)
Marianne wanted to wear her hat so she could be like both her grandpas!
Our concrete mixer was PINK! Yay!
Here Rus is holding the pump hose and my dad and I are squishing it around so it fills in everywhere.
I don't have more pics of the footing or the pad when it was poured, but everything worked out great! I was especially happy that the pad turned out good because we had never poured anything that large ourselves.
A couple weeks later we were able to start laying concrete blocks. It was a painful, arduous, tedious process to start, but we gradually improved in skill and speed. One hiccup was that somehow the footing on the left was 2" shorter than the footing on the right. We wound up cutting down dozens of blocks so that the courses would match on each side. That caused more than a few tears and headaches!
View of the left:
View of the Center: (See! There's the finished concrete pad!)
Whole view:
Progress! You can see the windows start to take shape.
Left:
Center:
Right:
Whole view:
Whole view with the right side caught up to the left:
The next hurdle was figuring out how to lay block above the windows. We could only do two of these at a time because we didn't have enough frames or clamps or honestly, skill, to do more. It's a miracle that they turned out okay. The two blocks above each window were U-shaped and had to be filled with concrete and reinforced with rebar. The clamps and the wood frames held the blocks in place while the concrete dried. I can't explain Marianne's face here at all.
View of the Left:
Center:
Right:
Whole view:
This is when we were finishing up the last course of one part of the wall. I teased Rus that I felt like he was building a wall between us...
It was HUGE when we placed the course of capstones on the wall!
View of the Left:
Center:
Right:
I haven't mentioned yet the community response to our wall building project. It really was a
community response. We were out working on this wall every weekend and most weeknights, with all of the kids engaged one way or another. We had a couple people stop every Saturday in their cars to tell us good job on our progress. Almost every person who was walking by would comment as well. We had a neighbor who had hired men to lay a brick driveway. The hispanic family that was leading that project said they were really impressed that our whole family was often out there working, and that we were doing a good job. Another neighbor complimented us and said he should have hired us to do the wall in his back yard. I told him that we're cheap, but SUPER slow!
Whole view:
Once the wall was built but before we could stucco it, we had to put a protective coating on the inside of the wall where our garden beds will be. If you put a lot of dirt up against a stuccoed wall, and then water it a lot, eventually the water will seep through the block and cause the stucco on the outside of the wall to detach and crumble. Knowing that we would have raised beds against the wall, we applied a thick gooey protective sealant to protect the stucco on the outside from sloughing off.
Right inside view:
Left inside view:
We also had to put metal edging up against the windows and where the wall ended for the gate. This would make the edges look nice and clean when we went to stucco them.
Stucco requires a base coat and then a top coat. The base coat was time consuming and challenging. The texture had to be just right because it would show through the top coat. Any inconsistencies in the block had to be covered up and leveled with the base coat. Rus and I got very good at mixing up the base coat/mud, troweling on the mud, spreading it out with a trowel, smoothing it with a darby, and then sponging it even smoother with sponge trowels. Don't get me wrong, this was the hardest part, but I honestly enjoyed it the most!
View of right:
We ordered a synthetic stucco that came in buckets already mixed and colored. We made a last minute decision to buy a drywall hopper (think paint sprayer on steroids), and it turned out to be a very good one. This part went SO MUCH FASTER than applying the base coat!
View of the left side:
My HOT honey spraying the right side...that hopper filled with stucco was HEAVY. Rus and I took turns until we realized he was better at doing that and I was better at floating the texture.
Whole view, FINISHED!
We didn't waste time putting up a little flower bed on the left side with block that had been retaining dirt elsewhere before the project.
Another big accomplishment was putting up these gate posts. They are HUGE timbers - solid 8x8 posts. Rus and I cut the ends into corbels on the band saw (
that was a lesson in communication, let me tell you!). He notched the posts and the top post so that they actually dovetail together. Such a smart, competent craftsman!
Last but not least, and not pictured, we framed out each window with a 2x8 frame and two latillas (round posts) in each opening.
It was a magnificent project, and I am so grateful for all that our family learned while doing it. Most of all we learned this:
We know how to work hard as a family.
We CAN do hard things!
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