[warning: this post is about a million paragraphs long]
So, our backyard was just a patchy bunch of dirt and weeds (Ron thinks someone seeded at one point, I just think it was weeds). It looked like this. We are the lowest lot of the 5 lots that surround us, so when it really rains we get the runoff from all 5 of those houses. We are also the last ones to landscape, so there had never been anything done to change how the water flowed once it was in our yard.
Here's the before shot (the one on the MLS website when we bought it).
At this point, the yard was severely sloped towards the house and there were cement stairs with no railing leading down to a 10'x10' patio of flag stones. The previous owners did leave that slide you see in the picture, but that was pretty much the only upside of the yard.
The first thing Ronnie, my dad and my brother Jordan did was to build a retaining wall/planter boxes from railroad ties so that we could take care of the slope towards the house and have a relatively level yard. It is awesome and looks like this:
This next part of the story is where I lack a LOT of what would be totally awesome pictures.
So, our unfinished basement only has two windows. Seen here:
While they are nice and big, they will be where the two bedrooms go eventually, which leaves no natural light in the family room portion of the basement. Since we moved in, I have always said that I wanted more windows in the basement. We realized that there is no better time to have a giant excavator in your yard then when you are already working with dirt and weeds, so windows it was. Our good friend came over with his excavator and dug three holes. Two for the windows (6'x5' and 6' deep each) and one right underneath the sliding glass doors. [there is a crack in the foundation there that had leaked some water into the basement last summer and we wanted to reseal the foundation while we were at it.] This hole was 10'x 4' and 9' deep (to the base of the foundation). I don't have any pictures of the holes, but they play heavily in the next part of the story (hence why I have given you measurements).
So, we (my dad and Ronnie) cut out the windows and installed them. They are awesome and look like this now:
At this point, Ronnie had resealed the foundation, but had not refilled that hole, because we did not have the window wells installed and we only wanted to rent a tamper machine one time. On the night of June 6th, a giant rainstorm moved in. Ronnie and I both ran down to the basement a handful of times towards the beginning of the storm, because the windows weren't caulked and sealed yet and we were worried about water leaking. We were fine every time so we moved a few things away from the windows and then continued watching television.
The storm was super loud. So loud that our television was turned up way louder than normal. At 10:30 p.m. we turned off the TV to go to bed and Ronnie commented that it sounded like the sump pump downstairs was on. This is nothing new during storms and the reason we are grateful we have the sump pump. Then, it hit me. It ALSO sounded like a bathtub was filling up downstairs and there is not a bathtub down there. We both ran over to the top of the stairs to see three inches of standing water. I immediately felt sick inside and wanted someone to "fix it." Being a grown up really stinks sometimes.
We walked down into the basement to find the more north window well filled completely to the top with water. Water was pouring in in a giant waterfall between the window and the foundation (since it was not sealed yet) at about the level of my head. We could then see that the more south window well was about 2 feet full of water and leaking just a bit. We ran outside and to our horror, the entire 10'x4' and 9' deep hole underneath our sliding door was full of water, it was then spilling over into the more north window well hole, which was full and spilling into the next window well hole. We got 4" of rain in just over two hours and since I have already talked about the drainage issues of our lawn compared with our neighbors houses, we were getting it all.
Right about then, I got a text from my good friend Chelsea to ask if our windows were holding. I told her no and what we were dealing with and she grabbed her shop vac and hopped in their car to come help. By this time it was nearing 11:30 p.m. The water in the basement was remaining at about 3 inches deep because the sump pump was working as hard as it could to keep up. I can only imagine how much water we would have had if we didn't have that. On the way over, Chelsea had to drive through water that was up to the doors of her Envoy so obviously flooding was an issue all over our section of town.
For the next 2+ hours, Chelsea and I carried loads of soaking items to the garage, swept water to the sump pump and got wet. We also caught the water coming in in large buckets and took that water directly over to the sump pump. It wasn't fun, but it felt like we were getting somewhere.
Ronnie was outside. He created a burm (sp?) so water was no longer flowing into the three holes and then began vacuuming out the water in the largest hole. He tried dealing with the window well hole first, but dirt walls started collapsing, and he determined that he had to get the level of the water down in the largest hole first. Once he got the water in that hole down to where the dirt separating it from the first window well hole was thicker, he moved to the window well hole and began bucketing out that water. At about 2 a.m. Chelsea and I had the water to the point where we had to sweep it to the pump and we were running out of water puddles large enough to sweep over. Chelsea went home and Ronnie and I finally fell into bed at 3:30 a.m.
The next morning, my dad and brother showed up as well as the sister missionaries in our ward. The boys began work on getting the window wells in place so we could fill in holes and tamp and be done with all of that before another storm came. The sister missionaries and I (but mainly them, since I was also dealing with the kids) continued to take things outside and began the lovely job of vacuuming up all of the standing water. Throughout the day, we made great progress and all that was left was a film of sticky, slick mud, which we scraped up as best we could. Then we rented commercial fans and began sorting our wet
crap possessions in the garage.
The finished window wells:
After talking to a dear friend about the clean up of their unfinished basement when they got four feet of water (yes, four feet of water) a few years ago, we determined that it was worth every penny to have a professional company clean up the now dry and hardened mud from the basement floor. Two 2-hour sessions later our basement was cleaner than it had ever been.
No, it is not all put back together yet. It's easy to forget, since it isn't part of my daily routine or in my sight unless I want something from our food storage. Here's a picture that shows you the two new windows in relation to the bedroom in the back corner of the house.
But back to the backyard (see what I did there?). With the window well installation moved up considerably, we needed to finish fixing the slope of the yard. A lot of the problem was fixed just by adding the retaining wall/garden boxes but Ronnie, my dad and Jord-man spent time moving dirt with a neighbor's tractor, and leveling with the 4-wheeler. The kids loved an excuse to ride the 4-wheeler at our own house.
Once that was done, we were ready to have cement poured. We decided to do a patio outside the back door and then extend the cement all the way down our side yard and driveway. We had a few delays while getting quotes, etc. but soon it was time to pour! We ended up hiring a company to prep and pour this for us since it was 12 yards of cement, way more than we felt we could handle on our own. In the process I learned that "the whole 9 yards" comes from cement trucks, since they carry about 9 cubic yards of cement each. I felt pretty good about that. :)
Now that this is in, I LOVE it. Love that our driveway is a bit wider, love that it is one entire area that I will never have to weed, love that my kids will be able to ride their bikes up and down that side yard while safely in my backyard and love that I have a place to sit and watch them!
Ronnie then built our huge 10'x10' sandbox and put that in place. He rented a gigantic trencher and our friend Steve came and helped him trench the backyard in preparation for sprinklers. Then with the planning help from our friend Marc and some more help from Steve, we began to put in the sprinklers. I should point out that Ronnie is working alone the majority of the time. Occasionally, I do help when needed, but with the trenches dug, having the kids out there is more counter productive as you have to help Kendree jump over every trench if she wants to get to the slide, or the sandbox, etc. and Devynee is only content in the play yard bouncer thing for so long.
As of today, we can begin filling in the trenches. We will then re-level the backyard, rake the heck out of it as it is the rockiest patch of earth imaginable and then fill up the sandbox with sand and lay sod! I can't wait! Our to-do list is no where near finished (front yard sprinklers, a new gate and new back steps anyone?) but we are on our way! I'll be sure to update again when we have laid sod. I never knew I could be so excited about grass. GRASS!!! My cousin Paul would be so proud.
