Wall - Pros and Cons

Well, in the grand scheme of things I'll chalk this on up as a relative win. The good news is the wall under the porch/deck is complete (the amazing news is SOMETHING is complete). The other bit of good news is that I got a storage area underneath. I had requested this from the very beginning, but they were always a bit hesitant about it until they could dig in to better understand how the foundation was working with the dirt under there.

So I got it and it's done. Great!

The buts... (in no particular order)

1. All the dirt they removed still hasn't been properly dealt with. They finally came out and graded it recently, but it's still too sitting up too high on the yard. Meanwhile the landscaper we want to use has informed us the grass under it is pretty much gone, and can't be replanted until spring. Great.
2. While I did get a very nice door to the storage space it's kind of in an odd spot. The story goes back to the fact that they dug the dirt out in both directions from where the door is. I never cared about storage under the deck. I mean, it will rain right in there. The part I'm interested in is under the porch. Well, they put the door near the center of what they dug out, but it's really at one end of the space I want to use....so when I get things in there I'll have to always be pulling stuff out to get stuff further in. This also meant they had to put a more sophisticated drainage system in. Evidently there is some kind of "tile" buried under there, with a drain to the pond. Whatever. Probably a good thing overall.
3. The area they dug out is not very deep (front to back). It's okay. They told me it might have to be this way. It's just really going to limit how useful it is. It's not deep enough for anything long (lawn mower, wheelbarrow, kayak, etc.) to be able to make the turn to get in there. 

This is one of those times where I am just choosing not to pick the battle on any of these issues. It's good enough. The dirt screwing up the yard is a big problem, but I assume we'll get around to dealing with that. The damage is pretty much done. They kept saying they couldn't move it sooner because of all the rain, but as I recall there were several (brief) periods of nice weather in there. I'll bet they just had to spend that time on other jobs.