Well... it's almost done. More than 6 months later, the project is almost over other than one semi-major detail, and a few other small ones. We are waiting on the driveway to be resealed so that it's all black again, and we're swapping out a few plants, and filling a sink hole near the top of the wall, none of which is serious. 

Just another few things to finish up, and the "Taj Mywall" (or "The Great Wall of Big Canoe") will be completed. 🙂 LOL! If you want to see the images from start to finish, you can skip all the words below and go straight to the pictures here. The before images will appear first.

2023 - 11 - 2024 - 02 -Front Yard Renovation - Google Photos

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This project started November 24th, so it's been almost 6 months since they started to wipe out the front yard, so it's been a long time but it's been worth it. We don't have a lot of land in front of the house to start with, so we decided we needed to make the best uses of the space that we have.

The wall tackled several issues we had with our front bank. I was lacking parking space and getting in and out of one of the garages was difficult, especially if our 3rd vehicle was parked like we normally park it.
The bank was pretty steep and slowly washing away, and some of the plants that were originally planted there weren't doing well, I had a concern that the edge of the road falling back down our hill. Many years ago, the POA actually built a retaining wall two doors down from us for one of the neighbors, so it was probably a matter of time before it would happen here.

We couldn't be more pleased. The only things left to do is reseal the entire driveway (Ben is coming back to do that) so that everything is the same black and fills all the cracks and crevice's. Joy will be replacing some of the plants that we transplanted, and replacing those with some new plants, and fixing all the mulch that got messed up when they did the irrigation work. We are also added a short split rail fence on one edge of our drive so people aren't terrified of running off the drive and falling down a hill. 🙂

We had great contractors working for us, and this is who we used:
Ben Hopkins - 770-893-8986
Ben Hopkins and his crews did all the demolition of the existing bank, installed the lighting, and built the walls and steps. Can't say enough good things about Ben. When we initially started, Ben had a different vision from mine, but once we were clear about what I wanted, they went to work. The wall (and project) ended up being more than anyone originally thought, but we trudged on and it turned out great. This is the tallest stacked stone wall that Ben has built. I used a lighting controller from Home Depot so that I can control the lights on the walls from my phone. 

Joy Dyer - 478-320-9036
Joy did the landscape design and all the landscaping. We are still making some modifications. Some of the yews that we transplanted are going to be replaced, and more mulch will be going down. The irrigation was actually done after the mulch went down, so now we have to re-cover some of that. The landscaping was the easiest part. 🙂 Joy is a Big Canoe resident.

Cody Allen - 678-763-3302
Cody did the irrigation and the water feature. Awesome job! At first we wanted a pondless water feature where the water would flow into a gravel pit. I didn't like the way that looked, so we turned that into a pond. We also added some height to the waterfall so it would be seen easier from the house. We used a Hunter irrigation controller for the irrigation, and I can manage the irrigation system from my phone.

Bruce Jankowski - 706-973-9192
Bruce has been my go to person for electrical work for years, so I had him run he power for the pump for the water feature.

Yveto Thomas - 678-794-2672
He goes by Thomas, but he did a great job with the wrought iron railings. Very nice guy.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Here's a video I took a few days ago as the sun was setting. 

Here are a few other pictures if you don't want to click on the link.