The Bard Wall

Before anything is priced, you walk the ground with the person who has to live on it. Where the water goes, what has to stay, what the grade is really doing behind the house.

Ties out, ground opened, base compacted in lifts. The first course is the one that matters — every course above it inherits whatever you got wrong here, so it gets checked, pulled and checked again before the second one goes on.

Wall carried along the house line with the granite treads set into it as it goes, rather than cut in afterwards. Cap stones levelled one at a time. Backfill and the top of the grade come next.

Granite treads set into the wall, cap course carried back to the house, and the cobble edge that holds the bed line and moves the roof water off the foundation.

What was at the door was a curved bluestone flight on a thin stone skirt. What is there now is thermal-finish granite: full slabs, two risers deep, run out to a landing that reaches the sill. The skirt under each tread is laid course by course and pointed as it goes, and the joints between the slabs are sponged off while the mortar is still green — once it cures on the face it comes off with acid or not at all.

Same trip, different trade — the open space under the deck gets a matching vinyl fence panel and gate instead of staying open to the yard. Set plumb against the existing corner post before anything gets fastened down.

The whole side of the house is in. Washed stone laid between two cobble edges that curve with the wall rather than cutting straight past it, beds mulched and planted to the line, and stepping stones set through black river stone where the walk turns for the door. The vinyl enclosure is closed in and hung — gate plumb, latch set, the run finished down to the mulch line.