The Right Thing To Do

My wee house was built well before current building standards made the use of reinforced retaining walls mandatory. Which is why the hollow cement block wall started curving in a bit. Coincidentally it is also why the wall cracked horribly when hit by a heavy object.

Now, I'm a handy person and my great temptation here was to head to Lowes grab a bag of Quickrete, fill in the damage and parge over the rest. Cosmetic fix. And I had almost talked myself into it. After all it would be much cheaper and I really can't be affording major repairs right now.

But a cosmetic fix would crack again in a few years, the wall would still be hollow and, really, the right thing to do is to rebuild it, with rebar reinforcements and concrete fill and mortar between all the joints -- the works, done right and up to code.

So these are the before shots.

And these are the during.

The contractor agreed with me it needed to be redone, and done right. (Of course he agreed, that's the option that involves hiring a contractor.)

So the wall's come down, and the wall will go back up again. When it's done I don't suppose anyone looking at the back of the house will even realize that I've had anything done to it. But I'll know. I'll know that it's strong and solid. I'll know that it's been done right. I'll know how much it cost to do the right thing and be glad I did, even if no one else ever notices.

Because in the end, doing the right thing... well, it's just the Right thing to do.