Drain pipe/septic tank beautification

OK, sometimes weekends on Kelleys are not really that fun. Since we are hoping to get the lawn put in the following weekend, I needed to knock-out a huge job that I have been procrastinating for about 18 months. Time to hide the drain pipe and septic tank and make it landscape ready!

So Friday morning, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up all the lumber (11 - 4x4x8 posts, 30 - 2x6x8 boards and 8 - bags of Quickcrete). Sounds simple, but first you need to pick out all the straight boards from the pile on the shelves. This all pressure treated wood, so very wet and very heavy. After humping all this material up to the island, here is a photo just getting started...

Let's do this

The weather real bad earlier this week and I heard there were huge puddles of standing water around the property. Since I am working with a tight timeline, I needed to be able to tackle this job with minimal interference from mud issues. Thankfully, the yard/dirt was good-to-go and not too muddy but loose enough to help.

By 8:00 pm on Friday, I had 11 posts set in with 500 lbs of Quickcrete. Let me tell you, this was a colossal pain-the-in-the-azz. Although I did have a gas-powered auger, there was at least 4 times as much hand digging. Hand digging = no fun.

Work-in-progress and 11 posts set and plumb

It was too early to go to bed, so I hung Sophie's bedroom door, and set the rest of the standard closet doors in place, ready for final install some time soon.

Saturday morning, I got rolling on the wall install by 9:00 am. The weather was crazy windy and only in the high 50's. I needed to wrap this job up by end of day because, I had to leave early on Sunday morning for the Browns game. 

Coming along slowly but surely

By Saturday night around 9:00 pm... Pipe no more! I put a slick vertical 2x6 front fascia to dress up the look and cover the massive amount of screw holes. The kicker is that I installed these by screwing from the back side through, so there are no visible screw hole at all now. cool.  

Final product

This turned out great. I am super happy with the overall look. Plus, now I can hide the pipe and septic tank. I still need to install the top cap, put in some additional bracing and drain pipe to relieve any future ground pressure from pushing this wall.

Sunday morning, seriously before the crack of dawn, I had to pack up and head home for the Browns home opener.

Waiting for the 7:30 am ferry, here is a nice photo of the sun coming up from the east.

Early morning sunrise at Seaway Marina

After a back-breaking 20 hour manual labor marathon, it was a great to attend a big Browns victory over the New Orleans Saints to wrap-up the weekend. 

Go Browns!

More to come...