Landscaping Begins!
Our landscaping project has started! The first thing we're doing is putting a walkway with steps right next to our driveway. In order to make things easier for our landscaper, I needed to extend the "sleeve" (basically, a 2 1/2" PVC pipe) that runs under our driveway. The landscaper can use it to run pipe and/or wires for the sprinkling system under the driveway, but if the sleeve doesn't extend past the walkway we're having poured, the existing sleeve is of absolutely no help at all.
Last night, I dug a trench for the extension of the pipe and went to Home Despot (hehehe) to buy the stuff I would need. When I got home, it was a little dark to continue working, so I thought I would get up this morning, glue the extension together, and then go to work.
I got up and the concrete contractors were there! They had started excavation and everything. I was able to cut the pipe to the right length and get it glued together, but the concrete guys had run into another problem when they were excavating. You know those green irrigation valve boxes that you see in yards? Well, one of them had been BURIED right in the middle of where the bottom of the walkway will be. There's a pretty big valve in that box. What to do? What to do?
I ended up going to Home Despot (hehehe) again and buying a new valve box, because the concrete guys had kinda knocked holes in the top of the old one. Who'da thunk that there would be a valve box buried several inches below the surface? They thought it was a rock until they knocked a hole in it. Anyway, I then took the rest of the pipe and dug a trench for a sleeve to this new box that will be brought up to be level with the concrete. I THINK the valve inside is for the pressurized irrigation system that the city is working on. They'll just surround the new box with concrete and we'll still have the access we need. In the future, if we hate it, we'll jackhammer out the concrete, get the city to extend the pipes to somewhere in the yard, and have a green box in the green grass instead of the middle of a concrete walkway, but again, that's only if we absolutely hate having the green box in the middle of the concrete. Tomorrow morning, cement trucks will show up. I'll have to make sure to get my boys up so they can watch!
Next step: Retaining walls. They'll start building those sometime next week. Hooray!
***EDIT***
Here are some "before" pictures so you will be able to see the progress:
