Retaining Walls - Finally

Todays update is pretty minor, but since it's been nearly a week since we've posted (or had an update on the pool), we wanted to show our current progress. The stone guys showed up again today, and fortunately it is the same crew that did the great work on the spa. They are continuing with the dry stack appearance, which we're very happy to see, since they could have chosen a simple milsap wall. One of the nice things about Robertson Pools is they haven't upcharged us for any options that a lot of builders would (stones, DE filter, etc.), and we got enough quotes to verify that this wasn't just an advertising ploy. I think the way they are able to offer great quality without a lot of additional cost is the fact that their trades are in house, but we also haggled quite a bit on the upfront price to get it reduced down by $6,000.

So, enough rambling, and on to the pictures showing today's progress. They have 66' of 18-6" retaining walls and 31' of flagstone steps to install, so it sounds like they will be onsite for about 3 days. The challenge with this work is the crew has to hand cut each stone to minimize the gaps, so here is the first row they've completed on one of the retaining walls:

Since the crew got a late start, and broke something in the process (likely the saw), we're anxious to see what sort of progress they achieve tomorrow.

We talked to the superintendent today, and got a schedule of items left to complete, so here are the bigger points:

Stone retaining walls and spillway start - Today 06/01/2011

Clean-up (regrade, sprinkler re-route, moving the playhouse) - Tuesday 06/07/2011

Plaster - Tuesday 06/14/2011

Start-up - Thursday 06/16/2011

Swimming - 06/18/2011

We also have to fit in some planting, a dog run fence, and porch railing, but hopefully all of that can happen towards the end of next week. They also have to come back after the pool runs for 30 days to seal all of the stone and start the salt system, but we're getting pretty close to swimming!