Parking Area


Finished grade with retaining walls



Due to the huge amount of rainfall we experienced this spring and summer, a large section of the land at the front of the house eroded away, leaving only canyons for us to look at. Water pouring down the nearby mountain, across neighboring land, would run over our temporary gravel driveway and then follow the contours of the sloping site until it reached the very bottom, some 150-200′ away.


Land no more



Neighbors were already up in arms about this problem (and had been for years we learned), so we decided to tackle this ourselves, doing what we could with our land and ingenuity.

Leveling the parking area seemed like a good start, so we worked out a retaining wall design that would allow us to bring in more gravel, but also fit with the step gardens we’d built at the sides of the house a year earlier.

The wood is local hemlock, 6″ x 6″ x 12′ cut logs. It’s held together with 2′ rebar to pin it to the ground in specific places, as well as 10″ nail spikes.

 

 

 

First load of 2″ gravel:

Second load of 3/4″ gravel:

3 thoughts on “Parking Area”

  1. Excellent solution and it looks great! Love the chunky-looking steps. Oh…and that’s definitely the largest circular saw I’ve ever seen.

  2. Yeay! You are back! Missed the updates on your blog, but this post surely makes up for some silence 🙂 Thank you!
    J.

Leave a Reply to troy. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *