Landscaping and Kitchen Cabinets

The landscaping folks arrived to finish the exterior grading.  Because our lot is sloped and has had water issues in the past we wanted to make sure all water was routed away from the home.  This means a series of swales near the house and berms and swales about 15 yards from the house.  We had a bobcat front end loader and mini skid-steer excavator at the house for the past few days.

After initial grading, I wanted to make doubly sure we had good drainage, so we took this area down a bit:

The main problem area in the house was just to the right of the picture above, and this fixed the problem.

Once we removed the dirt, Pedro suggested a rock wall using the rocks from the newly demolished yard pond.  that would prevent the swale (ditch) from filling in with surround dirt.

And the completed view that shows the elevation change.  (The bright orange on the side of the house is not the home color - there is a giant fluorescent orange construction dumpster just behind the camera reflecting on the house.)

Here's a preview of the kitchen cabinets with stain only - the sanding sealer and top coat have not yet been applied.  Exactly the color we were hoping for...