- Location
- Cranberry Township, PA
- Completed
- May 2025
- On site
- 3 weeks
The brief
What we did
The lot fell nearly four feet across its width, which left a side lawn nobody could stand on and a wet corner against the house. We cut in a level terrace, held it with a limestone wall and moved the water away properly.
The terrace is set on a compacted base with a slight fall to the garden, so nothing sheets back toward the foundation. Steps are single limestone slabs, pinned rather than mortared, so they can be lifted if the wall is ever serviced.
Scope of work
- Excavation and regrading
- Limestone retaining wall with drainage stone and pipe
- Compacted base and flagstone terrace
- Cut limestone steps
- Regraded lawn and planting to soften the wall
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Services used
What went into it
By the numbers
- 1,150 sq ft
- Terrace laid
- 4 ft
- Grade corrected
- 3 wks
- On site
- 38 tons
- Limestone set
The brief
A side lawn nobody
could stand on
The lot fell nearly four feet across its width. The owners had a strip of grass too steep to use, a wet corner against the foundation, and two previous contractors who had quoted to re-turf it without touching the grade.
We cut the level in, held it with limestone, and put the water somewhere sensible.
- Grade corrected before anything was laid
- Drainage stone and pipe behind the full wall run
- Steps pinned, not mortared, so the wall stays serviceable
Build sequence
How it was built
-
01
Excavation
Cut the terrace level and dug the wall footing below frost depth.
-
02
Drainage
Perforated pipe and washed stone behind the wall, wrapped in filter fabric, running to daylight.
-
03
Wall
Limestone set course by course, backfilled and compacted in lifts as it rose.
-
04
Surface
Compacted base, flagstone terrace and cut steps, with falls set away from the house.
Details
What made the difference
-
Engineered base
Six inches compacted in lifts under the full terrace.
-
Frost-depth footing
Wall footing below the frost line so it cannot heave.
-
Wrapped drainage
Filter fabric around the stone envelope — the step most failures skip.
-
Softened edges
Planting along the wall so the stone reads as landscape, not engineering.
Where it started
Before and after
“They found the drainage problem we had been arguing with two other contractors about, and fixed it as part of the job.”