what is it you like so much about the house? It looks beautiful on the outside but according to what I saw on your realtors website the inside is pretty common for houses in that price range. Did you ever think about finding a house with a beautiful interior, a yard you like and change the outside to the craftsman style you appear to like? Think about how much the potential house costs, how much you will spend altering the yard (while taking care of a small child and newborn) and then what is the return on the house if you decide to sell. The market is slowing down quite a bit and that has to be taken into consideration. While it is true houses are meant to live in they are also investments. I do not know anything about the area you are looking in but read up on functional obsolesence. If there is nothing in the area to compare it to there is no value in it. If you over develop your house it will only price so high meaning you spend $$$$ on a house put $$ inside and $$$ outside, you might only be able to get a very small percentage of that back on a resale (if you are lucky). Youe could lose quite a bit unless of course the market goes back up which I do not see happening. Think beyond the emotion on this one. Good luck in whatever you decide to do. It can be a heart wrenching thing to fall in love with a house and then have to deal with the big BUT. It happens to me all the time. I found the perfect outfit but it does not fit (but I can always go on a diet but the reality is that a year later it is still hanging in the closet with tags on it and now going to Goodwill), found the perfect TV but it does not look right in the room I wanted it for (but I can always put it in a different room and then i still have to buy a tv), found the perfect car but hate the way the seats feel (but I can always replace the seats but I will be uncomfortable for now)...no matter how much I love it the "buts" come into play. With patience you will find what you want with a smaller sacrifice. You probably did not get the answer you wanted here but you asked for advise and I assume you wanted honest opinions. I hope we made you think of a few things before making such a large commitment. You are talking about a half million investment so invest wisely!! I am done preaching cause I do want to beat a dead horse. Let us know what you decide and keep us posted. If you decide to do it anyway (and judging by your responses I think you will) start another topic to let us in on your project so we can all know what all is involved and how much it costs. Regards Ms Jay

You will need to dig down so that the bottom of the wall (which is the bottom of the footing) is below the frost line. Maybe a regional forum could help you find out what frost depth is. A footing is like a nice thick sidewalk that is created for the wall to sit on. (8" thickness depth would be good. 6" might be OK.) You're building a retaining wall so keep in mind that it needs to be sturdier than a free-standing wall. A footing ought to protrude beyond the footprint of the wall itself, by about 8" all the way around. So that's a total width of 24". If the present excavation only allows for the wall, you would need to excavate farther into the hill, also allowing for the space occupied by the form work. The wall will not look good if the block slopes. Instead, it should be level and to control it's height, step it down with level changes as needed. The footing would step down, too, as needed, in 8" increments (or multiples thereof) to accommodate the block courses. You'll need to use wire mesh in between courses of block. For heft and strength, I would fill the cells of the block solid with concrete as it's built. (Retaining walls that are under built tip over with time. Also, you will need to embed rebar into the footing which turns upward into the wall itself, locking the two together and helping the wall to last. Search Google images for "CMU wall" and you'll be able to see all manner of examples and details. My instructions are general and you must reconcile them with local conditions.

"... would you do a straight line off of the front walkway or something more rounded? This is something you'd work out in plan view. We can't see enough detail in a perspective photo from a single angle.

Typically, back yard neighbor's who are outside using their back yards do not want to see other neighbors who are also outside using theirs, or be seen by them. Serviceberry would make good backdrop trees, whereas the existing trees in the lawn will be shade trees and, presumably, limbed up, not being good for privacy. BTW, it is common that plantings for screening exist near property lines and that the foliage of these planting grow into the adjacent yards. That's a fact of life because everyone does not live on a 5-acre estate, but most everyone wants some degree of privacy from their neighbors. Privacy screens installed by one neighbor usually, simultaneously benefit the adjacent neighbor, which is why people do not mind this condition much, or at all, so long as the plants are not obnoxious or invasive.