The pile of dirt in front of the upper bay finally got moved (mostly) today, so I can take a decent picture of the front. It looks like a normal three-bay garage from this spot.
The garage doors are on order, but won't be in for a few more weeks. Where did the dirt go? See the circular wall around the base of that tree? I just had that reconstructed out of the same blocks that were removed from the old retaining wall.
There's a long story about that tree, but basically it should have died 15 years ago when the block retaining wall was first built. This tree was one of two growing out of the steep, rocky slope I was trying to do away with that the boss couldn't stand to cut down, so I told the guy that built the wall to just build around them. Both trees got the bottom 3-4 feet of their trunks buried, and this one had the backside of the retaining wall pass within six inches of it. I figured it would surely die, I'd cut it down, and that would be that. Well, it didn't die. But, it did over the course of 15 years blow the wall out so that it needed to be rebuilt anyway.
Since I needed to remove the wall to build the garage anyway, I decided I'd move it about five feet away from the tree, and maybe it won't get blown out again in my lifetime. Or, maybe the tree will just die this time. I'm good either way.
I couldn't rebuild the wall myself as fast as we needed it, so I hired a guy to do it for me and he finished today. The block wall butts up against the end of the concrete wall, allowing us to back-fill behind them so the apron slab in front of the upper bay can be poured. A little strange, I know, but the fact is I'd have to do something with the change of grade there anyway. The slope that existed before I built the block wall was a dangerous little feature that needed to be done away with. One of the previous owners guests actually drove their car backwards down it once because they couldn't tell where the edge was while backing up. We'll see how this works out over time.
I don't have a picture of the other tree, but it got asphalt laid all around it after getting 3-4 feet of dirt piled on it's base. It's still alive as well.
This is the front of the lower bay. Still need some dirt work done in front of the door to make the approach less steep.
:):)
