taterville, Things are coming along very nicely. I bet when you were in school you were one of those students that always did your homework; I never did mine. lol Most of your measurements worked fine, but something went wrong with the measurement of point A. That's my fault, not yours; my instructions were not adequate for the task. As we go along, there will be times when you need to mark a place on the ground in a semi-permanent way. Any number of things can be used; stakes, tent pegs, or nails with a ribbon attached. Now let me revisit the location of point A. You will need to place a marker at point A that is at the bottom toe of the slope about mid way in the curved transition between the relative straight line of the toe running behind your house and the straight line of the toe running along the side of your house. Begin at point A and measure along a line parallel to the back of your house to a point that aligns with the back of your house, shown in my graphic as point B. Earlier you gave that distance as 4ft 11 inches. That may have been correct, but because we may now be starting from a new location for A, you will need to repeat this measurement. Now go back to point A and measure parallel to the side of your house to a point that aligns with the back corner of your house shown as point C. Think of the box defined by the the three points and the back corner of your house as a rectangle. It is the width and length of this rectangle we seek. You did not give a distance from point E to F and I assume that the slope is just too long and slick to make the measurement. That's OK, there are other ways to find the location of point F. I'll prepare some instructions on how to go about it. You are getting close to providing the data needed to produce a base map defining the terrain you have. It wont have the precision of that of a professional, but is certainly suitable for planning purposes. The precision can be improved as needed. Taking what can be used from your photos, the survey, and the measurements requested by yardvaark and myself, I have made a drawing. Contours shown are at 1 ft intervals. Scale, small squares equal 2ft. I will add to and make corrections as additional data comes in. Below is a thumbnail. The full sized drawing Is in the optional link. I would invite everyone to use any of the graphics I provide to convey your ideas for the site. Here is a link that might be useful:

I wrote a big long winded response to this at 6:30 this morning. Obviously, I was not awake enough to post it correctly because it is not there. It pretty much said the same thing that GG and PLx said (but in way more rambling words). The biggest thing that people don't anticipate when attempting switchbacks is that you intensify the grade between the walks (the zig and the zag). If you level out a cross slope, you either have to cut the slope on the up side, fill the slope on the down side, or a little of both. This really comes into play at the bends because you have two surfaces at very different elevations which are essentially right next to each other. I had to dig out some old cd's to find this relic. I did this as a side job for a professor's neighbor while I was in school. It had a very low budget. Guests whould have to park on this side of the house and would often try to climb the hill to the front door rather than to walk down the sidewalk, up the side street to the driveway and along the side of the garage to that same door (hidden between the poplar and pine). This walk is 3' wide, and rises about 8 and a half feet. You can see that there is a pretty steep slope in the walk as well as a lot of steps. The actual poured concrete walk is right in front of the house (garage) running from the steps to the right end of the building. You can see that I had to use a lot of rocks to stabilize the slopes both above and below the main part of the walk. If I lowered the elevation, it would be steeper above. If I raised it, it would be steeper below. This actually was a good solution for this particular situation simply because several people actually fell because there was no walk. The concept is much simpler than the application. You really have to think it through.

If those big roots are lifting the sidewalk next to the house, they are on their way to the house. Most trees can sustain damage to the odd root but some don't take well to it at all and damage to several roots is likely not a good idea - especially for a large tree near a house, since roots function in part to keep trees upright. Learning what kind of tree it is will help you determine not only how it is likely to respond to root cutting but also what its roots (and the rest of it) are likely to do in the future. One thing I have done around tree roots is to use paving stones, laying them around and between the tree roots. But this has only been for a back pathway to the alley; for a front sidewalk used by guests or the mail carrier, this is not good enough. Bottom line is that if a tree is causing trouble around structures, you want to think about the long term viability of this tree in this location before doing contortions to adapt to the tree. You might put thousands into a new sidewalk only to find that the tree is removed within five years for its other incursions as it grows... canopy, other root problems, etc. KarinL

I live in Ohio and live in a neighborhood of primarily 1900-1930 homes. My neighbor has a gorgeous original driveway that is just two cement tracks with grass growing in between. In our urban area, this is also good for additional drainage! Here's a similar pic on HOUZZ https://www.houzz.com/photos/11th-street-residence-mediterranean-exterior-los-angeles-phvw-vp~57359-Wood-Residence-mediterranean-exterior-los-angeles Other ideas! https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-home-contemporary-exterior-toronto-phvw-vp~1196064-Home-contemporary-exterior-toronto https://www.houzz.com/photos/750-south-ocean-blvd-tropical-landscape-boston-phvw-vp~3847195-South-Ocean-Blvd-tropical-landscape-other-metro https://www.houzz.com/photos/french-country-vacation-home-on-powers-lake-traditional-exterior-chicago-phvw-vp~1985786-Lake-WI-Residence--1-traditional-exterior-chicago https://www.houzz.com/photos/sea-cliff-hideaway-traditional-entry-san-francisco-phvw-vp~57675-Cliff-Hideaway-traditional-exterior-san-francisco