Great Walls of Sandstone!

This is shot of the back of theVictorian House. The backyard was filled with debris and had a steep, uneven slope to it. My plan was to build a sandstone retaining wall and not only square out the yard, but also make it level. You can see the two additions attached to the house. They appear to have been built in the late 50's. We plan to preserve the one on the right and turn it into a sun room, and remove the one on the left which is in very poor condition. It appears a veranda ran across the back of the house.

This is is my work horse; a thirsty Ford F-250 V-10. With me, and my Bobcat, no stone goes unturned. I put an advertisement in our local paper for sandstone was was presently surprised by the response. The photo to the right is the basement door when we found it.

This was the first of three foundations we investigated. It was a challenge to remove stone that was mortar together for the last one hundreds years.

This was the first of dozens of drop offs of sandstone, some weighing in at 500 pounds. We had to leave the Bobcat on the work site and rolled the majority of stones off the trailer by hand. You were spent by the end of the day. We lost track of the count after 300.

A skid steer is a amazing and useful machine. With a set of pallet forks and a bucket, you can do just about all you need to do.

Equally amazing is a mini-exavator. This Kobelco was so smooth and amazingly quiet, you could work all day and not disturb the neighbors. The rubber tracks did very little damage to the yard. I wish I could afford one. I'm just grateful that my good friend loan me his time on his.

This photo is shot from the top of the third floor. It was a small room at the rear of the house. We think ordinally it was a small bathroom for the servants on the third floor. We haven't had any success finding out what the third floor was originally designed to do.

Now don't be fooled into thinking that with a Bobcat, all the setting of stone is easy. Far from it! The Bobcat could get you near your work, but you'd have to man handel it into place. Sometimes they would roll off and you'd have to drag it back into place. we tried a gizmo that would clamp to the stones, but it was too quirky to work with and consumed a lot of time.

The whole summer had disappeared, but the progress on the backyard walls progressed with outstanding results. I refer to this endeavor as my therapy wall. It is what I did without comment or issues, and it didn't have an opinion or argue with me.

Was it worth it? I think so. Just look at the first photo of the original door.

But...we had one more surprise.

There was this strange wet spot in the backyard that we couldn't identify. Mary, my wife started digging with a shovel and hit something. She called me over and thought she hit one of my drain pipes that I had just finished laying the perimeter of the house. She dug more and....

...and what did we find here?

A claw foot tube filled with bricks. Ironically, it was deliberately sunk into the ground and surrounded with red brick cemented in place.

We would welcome any additional information about this house. If you know anything about this house, the neighborhood, or photographs,
please email us at:



victorian house@efadgroup.com