lifting the old wolmanized- repaving2

I have no memory of the first time the backyard was paved and landscaped. It was done by a greenhouse-group from Blawnox. I had gotten to know the old man who ran the greenhouse; he was a great source of information. I had asked him about landscaping my backyard and he said his grandson ran that part of the operation. The grandson came down, gave me a bid and I gave him the work.

Because I was working, I was not here to see them dig up the place and create the four platforms. What I remember most is my design of the curved upper platform and the left-over pavers. I had so many, that I decided to lay them down on top of the cement on the side of the house all the way down the alley to the gate. (There was almost an entire pallet of extra bricks.)

Watching the guys take everything up and getting the ground ready for a new foundation and new pavers makes me think back to when someone else did all this work to put the retaining walls, the cement-sand and the bricks in place.

The image is the retaining wall between the platform in front of the back-door and the large patio above it. All the wolmanized was anchored into the ground with seven-foot rebar. The drain cover was designed by the blacksmith at Gilgamesh Forge who also did the alley gates, and the flowerpot-holders on the outside of the deck. I love the text accompanying the images of the old and new drain covers. A previous client requested something interesting to replace a rusted drain lid in the courtyard of his Mexican War Street rowhouse. We went with a Celtic weave pattern, to create this interesting option for an otherwise ordinary utilitarian object. Lid is 12” in diameter.