Lake Villa Improvements Year 3 (2022)
The Sitting Wall
In 2022, we took on the very ambitious project of building a sitting wall with a patio in front of the house.
This is what the house looked like before we did any work on the front.
Once again, Marie designed the project with Google Sketch so I would have fairly accurate measurements. We showed this to a couple of contractors first. One quoted $15,000 and another was $25,000! That's when we decided to do it ourselves.
The Sitting Wall
This is where the patio and wall will go.
The patio would be at the same height so not to creep up the siding, so I had a lot of digging to do, including the removal of two trees.
The Sitting Wall
The first thing I did was take a measurement of the sidewalk's height, compared to the height of the siding, so I had a rough idea of how deep I needed to dig.
The Sitting Wall
After clearing out the area of plants and brush, I began the tedious process of slowly digging out the ground so it was somewhat level. But I wanted to see what it looked like leveled first, before I dug down as deep as I needed to.
The Sitting Wall
It took me a couple evenings to dig out this far.
The Sitting Wall
A couple of days after that, I got a bit further. I placed down some of the patio blocks so I could get an idea of how far out I would need to go just for the patio and not the wall, since the wall would have to go much deeper into the ground.
The Sitting Wall
And here I finally got the ground dug out for the patio length. Now I need to dig out further for the "L" portion of the patio.
The Sitting Wall
I just about finished digging out the "L" for the patio. Time to start on the digging of the trench for the wall!
The Sitting Wall
Since the wall would actually need to be put in first, I just dropped in the patio blocks on the outer edges of where the patio would be so I knew where to dig for the wall. You can see here that I had already started to dig the trench for the wall blocks.
The Sitting Wall
When I got to the corners, I temporarily placed in the first row of wall blocks so I could see where I still needed to dig.
The Sitting Wall
Here you can see that I have the entire wall area trenched out and ready for the base aggregate and sand!
The Sitting Wall
Unfortunately, the weather didn't want to cooperate, so I had to take a break for a day or two until the trenches drained and dried out!
The Sitting Wall
When the trench dried out, I packed in about 4 inches of aggregate base and about an inch or two of leveling sand.
Since I tried to dig it out fairly level, I was actually able to get it level just from the packed aggregate base, so putting the blocks in the sand shouldn't be an issue!
The Sitting Wall
I started with the center post, building it up as straight as possible, but still trying to keep it slightly tilted so the rain water wouldn't pool on the top when it is finished.
The Sitting Wall
The Sitting Wall
Here's the first segment. Looking good so far!
The second segment is built, along with the third pillar.
The Sitting Wall
The Sitting Wall
Taking a closer look, you can see I was able to line up the top row of wall blocks with the pillar blocks, so the pillar is one block higher than the wall.
This will increase when I am done and put on the three inch thick capstone atop the pillar.
Another section of the wall is built, and ready for the last piece, that will go along the front of the sidewalk.
The Sitting Wall
The final wall segment is trenched and ready!
The Sitting Wall
First two rows of blocks are in. Notice I added large rocks to go down the driveway.
The Sitting Wall
I added only half of a second row to see if that's how we wanted to end this segment, which is what we decided to do.
The Sitting Wall
The wall is all done, except for the capstones, which have been ordered. They are $120 each and I need four of them.
The Sitting Wall
And here's what the finished wall looks like, before we add in plants.
The Sitting Wall
The capstones came in, and boy, are they heavy! I had to pay the delivery crew another hundred dollars to carry them over and place them on the pillars.
Of course, I had applied the concrete adhesive first, so I had to quickly tap them down into the adhesive to make them somewhat level.
We also placed planters on each pedestal.
The Sitting Wall
Adding the Patio
With the wall completed, it's now time to put in the patio.
Before laying down any blocks or sand, I first needed to put down the weed barrier, so any seeds or roots that were left behind won't come up and ruin the floor.
Then the aggregate base was spread over the weed barrier and packed down. I applied the aggregate on a slight slope toward the wall for proper drainage.
Adding the Patio
After the base was in place, I put in the edger blocks that would butt up against the sidewalk at a slight rise from the sidewalk. These are thicker than the patio blocks, so they had to be a bit deeper in the ground. You can't see it, but there is base and sand under them.
Adding the Patio
I then spread in some more sand and began laying in the patio blocks, making them level with the edger blocks.
Since this first row was against the concrete entrance pad and not the house, they didn't fit exactly, so I would have to cut one for the first row.
Adding the Patio
Since the sand was pretty much level, aside from the slight slope away from the house for drainage, the next few rows went in pretty fast. As you can see, they fit perfectly in the space I created without any cutting, except for around the pillars.
Adding the Patio
The next evening after work, I was able to get a bit further, but not much.
Adding the Patio
By the end of the next evening, I had almost finished laying the patio blocks in, minus the ones around the wall that will need to be cut.
Slow going during the week!
Adding the Patio
On Wednesday, I finished laying down the uncut blocks. As you can see, I have about a one inch height difference between the blocks and the siding, which is good.
Adding the Patio
For the first cut, I decided to just cut a square, then a separate square to line up with it. But that wasn't such a good idea, since the piece was so small it was very hard to keep it level, as it wanted to wobble.
Adding the Patio
So for the remaining pieces, I just cut out the corners, so it was one big piece. But you can't see it because it got cut off on the left side.
Adding the Patio
And here's the completed project. All that remained was to spread polymeric sand between the cracks and lightly spray it with water so it would harden.
Adding the Patio
And here's the finished product, albeit still a bit wet from hosing down the polymeric sand.
Adding the Patio
Building the first Garden Bed
If you recall, the house had a row of red blocks, separating the mulch area from the grass when we bought it.
The first thing I did here was to dig them up, then bury them back in the ground, so they were flush with the grass.
I then added another row of gray/white blocks on top so they somewhat matched the color of the wall.
All the blocks are in position, but there are big gaps between them since these are trapezoidal shaped. So I'll need to add captsones.
Building the first Garden Bed
After all the blocks were in place, I then cut in the capstones, just as I did for our gardens at our house in Normal. Since this no longer matched the rocks, it was time to replace the rocks with a wall.
Building the first Garden Bed
Building the first Garden Bed
Here you can see I started removing the rocks from the top. The plan was to stair step the blocks down the driveway, so each block was level and not sloped, like the other side.
In this image you can see what I meant by stair stepped. I'm about a third of the way done here. I did not yet glue the blocks together, as I wanted to wait until it was all done, just in case I had to shift them to one side or the other.
Building the first Garden Bed
After finishing, I removed all the blocks one segment at a time and glued them down.
Each segment has a total of three rows. Two are visible, and the bottom row is buried underground on top of paver sand.
Building the first Garden Bed
The next step was to seal the crack between the blocks and the driveway so water doesn't get under the blacktop and crack it.
Building the first Garden Bed
And here is the completed project. But after looking at it, we felt the two sides didn't really match, so we planned to update the right side for the next year's project.
Building the first Garden Bed
Rebuilding the Flagpole
Having done all these upgrades, we felt the cheesy flagpole made with shower curtain rods just didn't do the yard justice. So I bought a real 25' flagpole.
We dug down about 18 inches below grade and about 16 inches wide. We used a box lined with plastic to form the concrete. The instructions said to go down 24-36 inches but beyond 18 was hard clay. Besides, we knew we weren't going to extend the pole the full 25 feet anyway. So hopefullly, this would be deep enough for that height and the winds that we get.
Rebuilding the Flagpole
The new pole came with the tube so we placed the tube in the center of the hole, added water, then began to pour in the concrete mix, a little at a time, until it was about 2 inches above grade.
Rebuilding the Flagpole
The next day, we dropped in the pole, extended it to 20 feet, and added the American flag and my Air Force flag. We weren't sure if it was strong enough to withstand the wind, which is why we only raised it 20 feet.
Rebuilding the Flagpole
The last step was to remove the box and plastic, then bury the remaining portion that was still exposed.
This was our final project for the year.
Rebuilding the Flagpole