Retaining Wall

After sitting in the chairs for the afternoon, we realized we should have let the end of the retaining wall dead-end into the fence rather than curve back toward the lake.  This will give us much more room to sit around the fire pit.  And you thought the retaining wall was done...  Oh, the fire pit is now mortared as well.  This little area is so much more usable now.
 

Fire Pit

The retaining wall is done and the first ring is set in place.  We will mortar it in the morning and then we can fill the inside part way up with gravel to raise the fire up.  Next up is to get the sprinkler lines run through where the stairs go so we can get them done.  This has been a ton of work for such a small wall.  But now we can sit back and enjoy the fire and the view at the same time.
 

Retaining Wall

The first 2 courses of the new retaining wall are done and it is turning out very well.  I used 3" of dry concrete mix as my base and that makes things so much easier to work with.  The mix packs really well and firms up nicely when the ground gets wet.  We have 2 more courses to stack and then we can build the fire pit.  We'll get that done after lunch.
 

Retaining Wall

It took forever, but we finally got all the dirt moved so the retaining wall can be rebuilt farther back from the lake.  This will allow us to sit all the way around the firepit and give us a great spot to sit in the shade in the early afternoon.  We used 5 gallon buckets and it took over 130 of them to get all the dirt out of here and up the stairs to back fill the upper retaining wall.  Yes, we counted them, no it's not strange.
 

Retaining Wall

The stairs and retaining wall that were near the fire pit were not really in the best spot.  So we have taken them down in order to move them back toward the tree by about 3 feet.  We realized we better do this before we get too far on the sprinkler system.  So it's time to take a break on that and do some hard manual labor for a few days.
 

Sprinkler System

We have most of the trenching done for the section of grass near the lake.  The trench by the retaining wall goes around the steps and all the way to the other neighbors property line.  So we need to turn and go back to the retaining wall, but we have work to do there before we can finish the trenching.
 

Sprinkler System

We decided to install an isolation valve and a drain valve between our house and the neighbors.  Coming out of the other end of the manifold is a hose bib.  This will allow us to do 3 things: 1) Attach a hose to the lake water system, 2) Attach the drinking water to the sprinkler system in early season before the pipe goes in the water, 3) Attach the compressor to the system to blow it out in the fall.
 

Sprinkler System

We have some amazing neighbors at the lake.  Last year they offered to let us tie into their irrigation system so we didn't have to put a pipe in the water and install a pump, pressure tank and back flow preventer.  While we were at home last week, they removed the boards on their pump house and put a T off the main line so we could begin to install our sprinkler system.
 

Doors

The weather was better today, so I was able to get the doors on the street side of the cabin as well as the tool shed painted.  I did the inside bright white and the outside the same blue that we used on the gable ends.  I still need to do the french doors, but I have a little work on the seals I need to do before painting them.  I may try to get that done next weekend.

Stairs

The weather was not great today, so I decided to tackle a project that could be done even if it started raining.  It's taken a little over 2 years, but I finally replaced the stair case we took out when we rebuilt the street side foundation.  We've just had a dirt hill to walk up and down for long enough.  I stole the blocks from the stair case closer to the lake, so we'll have to rebuild that one next.