The stone on the retaining wall and the offices is now complete. Turned out beautifully.
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The stone is a blend of chopped Oklahoma and Hackett. The retaining wall uses the blend as-is. The stone for the office walls was hand-picked to omit any darker stones. The retaining wall has some incidental stones which are very dark while the office walls has mostly tan, brown, and orange tones.
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The stones are still dusty and need to be washed but the office walls did end up with very few darker stones. The mortar dried to a light to medium gray. We are still deciding whether to seal the stone with a color enhancing sealant which will further bring out the stone color.
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We added a second, smaller retaining wall on the north edge of the pool deck. During the heavy rains last spring, the rain was running down into the pool, carrying lots of mud and leaves along with it. This retaining wall should keep a lot of that out now and route the water down along the side of the deck instead of across the deck.
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The flagstone ledges turned out great. These were carved out of giant slabs of stone and hand-chipped along the sides to give it a natural appearance. Ahu will use her ledge for flowers whereas I plan to use mine to set a cooler of cold beverages.
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