More Pizza Oven Landscape Timbers And Excavation - March 2025

Progress on the pizza oven MVP continues.  At least in terms of the hard surface part of the project.  Back ten days ago, I showed the first timber (6x6x8 treated ground-contact) being placed on site and talked about how much more excavation was required.  A few days ago, I posted a photo showing the three other timbers that I brought home from the lumber store that were ready to get placed for dry-fitting. 

Now that I have the first four timbers on-site, I can start to see how much more excavation is required.  With the wall being about ten-inches-tall, that means that I would like to have about ten-inches of gravel behind the wall.  Thus, excavation is for the space required for the timbers to be square plus ten-inches in each direction. 

Below is a look at the current state of the area:  All four timbers are on-site and I've been pulling away at the earth that needs to be retained:

My plan is to use a flat shovel to create a clean edge in the back/sides of the wall.  Then, I'm going to get down to the drywell - under the timbers.  I'm likely to leave some of the earth in the middle of the square, but apply fabric on top.  

Order of operations:

1.  Clear back/sides down grade.  

2.  Dig out under timbers to drywell stone.

3.  Lay out Fabric.

4.  Lay down gravel + paver base to create level base for bottom timbers.  

5.  Start with the timber at the base of the slab, level it out and anchor in the ground with rebar.

6.  Work around the timbers - anchoring them with rebar.

7.  Stack additional timbers - attach with timberloks.

8.  Backfill with gravel, drape the fabric over.  

9.  Back fill with earth. 

10.  Fill center with base + gravel.