The beginning of a long project

We have been in our house for almost 2 years with every intention of landscaping our backyard. We thought we would wait until we had the money saved up to do it all at once, but have since realized what a large project it is going to be. Our backyard is very intimidating. We live on a hill and our yard slopes down away from the house. A lot of the procrastination has been because we have been trying to figure out what we wanted to do, and have changed our mind several times. Now we are just going to do one phase at a time, and start with the things we know need to be done. The previous owners put up a retaining wall across the back, but for some reason had it slope down with the yard instead of making it even. So this became our first phase, to build up the wall level. Rob spent most of Friday drilling holes in the existing wall to put in rebar to secure the addition. The boys were happy to be out helping dad. Porter just likes to wander around and do his own thing, but Ethan likes to be in the thick of it so Rob got Ethan all geared up for the flying debris and noise from the drill...

We spent ALL day in the yard Saturday getting the wall up, but we finished just before it got too dark. It was a very long day, but we are excited that we are finally making some progress.


Now we need to fill in the wall with cement and have someone stucco it to match. Then we start the fun stuff of moving the dirt around and trying to make the yard level and usable.

*Does anyone know anyone that has a yard like this?? I would love to hear any landscaping ideas. Kristin, I know your house is laid out similar to ours, is your backyard this way too? Have you done anything with it?