Alongside my house, next to the garage, there was a large car-sized space that was just dirt and various grass/weed plants. It turned into mud every time it rained and the ground was too soft to park on frequently.
I started last year – roughly the same time as the deck in the back yard, they have congealed into one massive house project haha – digging out the area with a shovel and wheelbarrow. I made decent progress, but it was slow, and I hurt my back several times.
I finally decided to just rent an excavator to finish the work! I had several tons of gravel delivered as well to act as the surface.
And I have to brag, I was – for a very first time operator of any sort of “heavy equipment” – not too bad driving that little thing around. It was a blast, too! If this programming thing doesn’t work out, I’m gonna go buy an excavator and drive it around town with a sign that says “Will Dig 4 Food”.
It took a few hours, but I got enough of the final excavation done, and extended the drain that runs to the street with a trench and drain pipe.
Once the “excavation” was done I laid down a weed fabric (and completely forgot to show any pictures of it) and then used the excavator to spread the gravel, which made very quick work of it.
Once the gravel was done, I moved a couple railroad ties into place to extend the “retaining wall” along the side.
I still need to go get a few more ties and build the wall up one or two levels more, as well as the kick off to the right side.
And now with the driveway mostly complete, I used the excavator to move into the back yard to pull a stump out of the ground, leaving a massive hole in the ground I filled in with some of the dirt I dug up earlier.
Now with the driveway extended my parking has improved massively and I think it looks much nicer outside my house.