Thank you so much for all your help, pictures, hints and advice. I got brave this weekend and tackled my first tufa project- a 120 foot retainng wall! I did a tufa face(portland, sand, peat 1:1:2) on an existing cement block wall that was filled with rebar, cement and rocks. All this as practice for my hay bale wall.

Take a look at it & please give me feedback on the "carving" does it look ok? or does it look too fake rock ish? I plan to add colors(if I can ever move again)with coffee & tea tomorrow, and wood stain next week.

Please check it out at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sutterock@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=/4e52 &.src=ph&.tok=phPO.lBBiQezSujU

hope the link works- im new at this posting stuff

Debbie

Kinda makes me wish I had some place to put one!

Please post pictures once it has cured.

Michael

Jo

Thank you for sharing and congratulations on a wonderful, wonderful job. :-)

peak

y'all are gonna laugh, but on the subject of tufa houses.........I am toying with the idea of making a little roofless tufa play castle (with rock walls of course) for my 3 little ones. Sure beats those big ugly plastic primary colored toys that end up in the neighbor's yard when the wind blows. Not sure what I would do with it after the kids outgrow it tho. A giant planter maybe? A dog house? I have been eyeing the faux bois pieces on this forum for little furniture pieces for the castle.... so many ideas, so few daylight hours. I think my DH is regretting getting me the c-mixer.....

I'll post more pix & describe the steps more clearly soon if anyone is interested. I will be adding more tufa to the "rocks" that I am not satisfied with & some of the flatter areas by friday & the color process starts sometime next week when I am satisfied with how it appears to be cureing (if I havent ended up bedridden haha) the coffee already looks interesting on my test spots. Gave the rocks a greenish brown tint where I sprayed it. (Why?)

I think the kids will have fun helping spray the coffee & tea haha.

WOW what a great wall. I can't believe you took this on as your first project. What will you do (besides the castle) as an encore????

I would like to build a wall so I can create a slope in my flower garden, my land is FLAT! You've inspired me to realize it's do-able.

INCREDIBLE JOB!!

Melanie

I have a hideous cement block retaining wall all along my driveway...lucky me!...I think it's time to buy a cement mixer.

Cher

I think it looks absolutely UNIQUE and wonderful! So much better than those humdrum stacking bricks everyone buys and uses these days!

Want you to follow up with us and advise how using the coffee to stain this wall holds up over time....I used tea to stain some tufa pieces and it was a miserable failure (color was gone after less than one full summer). So, please (if you can remember and have time) report back after your coffee stained wall has 'weathered' a while!

Tufa On!

Kathy/Longlocks

P.S. No idea why the coffee is greenish looking! But if you wanna encourage some moss to grow on your rock tufa wall, when kiddos are finished eating their yoghurt, just put a little water in the cup (mix the leftover yoghurt clinging to the sides with the water a little) and then have the kids pour this mixture on the wall. The active yeast in yoghurt will encourage moss and lichens to start growing on your wall. And if you or hubby are beer drinkers, you can swish out those beer cans and bottles and pour that on the wall too (this will also encourage moss to grow!)

I think a 'tufa playhouse is a great idea. If you could find a way to 'tufa over styrofoam walls (instead of cement blocks) it would even be semi-moveable.

Artsy, the teasing has just begun. My family says that one day they'll wake up and the entire house will be 'tufad. They tell me not to get any big ideas when a cement truck goes by. A major bridge is being built close to where I live (Tacoma Narrows) to accompany the existing one and alleviate traffic. My daughter and I were crossing the other day and I was eyeing the amazing cement work and the huge cement plant that is onsite. My daughter (18) rolled her eyes and said, "What next, Mother?"

Sigh, artists are never appreciated in their own time.

We need to come up with our own bumper stickers, like, "Hypertufa Rocks!" Or, "Honk if you 'Tufa!" Or, "Make Mud, not War."

Deb

The coffee stain won't hold up under the weather so unless you're willing to seal it I wouldn't go that route. I hate to discourage anyone in trying anything but your project is so big that an experiement like that would be a major undertaking.

Don't forget that your 'tufa is still curing and will change appearance for the next few weeks. It'll get lighter and you'll be able to see more subtle detail.

IAG

peak

Butterfly- love that idea...tufa play castle, bridge & "moat/ sandbox" with a little garden later becomes a tool shed, fishpond, and pumphouse. I'll have to draw up some sketches & scare my dh with this hahahaha. He already is asking whether this castle is realllllllly for the kids or is it for me?

dee

Wonderful!

Eva

Kathy/Longlocks

Debbie

I will be tufaing my new home's landscaping in the spring (yippee a blank pallette!!) & had a question regarding courtyard walls- anyone used tufa for a courtyard type wall about 48" high? Would I use a wood frame or cinder blocks......? and I want to add a small wrought iron gate if that makes any difference.

I think it will be pretty to add a courtyard to the front of my home, as well as another (yes my new house has another hill....)set of retaining walls to terrace the hill in my back yard. Those mushroom lights I saw in another thread might look really nice leading up the the courtyard......

ps- anyone had tufa withdrawls? I cant do tufa b/c of my house being on the market & I have been sitting here wanting to tufa practically everything & anything that sits still long enough.(watch out kids!!!)

Please Please let me see the picture...:)

butterfly bush- yes, we knew we were going to sell the house... which is why we took on such a huge project all at once, we needed to cover our ugly cement block wall to make our yard prettier, and we figured that it was a great practice wall for our new house.

sunset- we used maybe 20 bags of cement, 20 bags of sand, 10 bags of peat (I highly reccomend buying a cement mixer for a large project, ours cost 185$ on sale at a discount tool store can I name where I got it?)

here is the link again, hope it works, have some recent pix of the wall on it now;
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sutterock@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=/4e52 &.src=ph&.tok=ph7__GCBEqnjSujU

we are moving to our new home in mid march....lots of yard to tufa there yeahhhhh!

Also, any details that you can give about how you accomplished this would be appreciated. For example, how did you make them look so individual?

Thanks so much.

(re:your plants ....... Concrete needs to be aged with water and time to leech out the poisons that kill plants.)

Good luck in your new DIGS - pun intended- heheheh !

Shirley in Smalltownrednecktractorville, WI

Did you ever get a chance to start on the playhouse castle--sounds interesting.

Cathy

John

-- Zinnia

Beck

All moss died, the vinca hole had a vinca plant poking through it the last time I saw the hole, but I have not seen it up close in a long time.

Since June 2007, we provided Yahoo! Photos users several options to move their photos. If you did not take the opportunity to move your photos, unfortunately they are no longer available. For those users that did move your photos to another service, your photos should be waiting for you there.

o-someone-please can you find another site that will host them?

Missing out on the glory that is the Great Wall of 'Tufa,

Rain

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[URL=http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk141/deesphotos_photos/300 foot hypertufa wall/CIMG9664.jpg][IMG]http://i279.photobucket.com/ albums/kk141/deesphotos_photos/300 foot hypertufa wall/th_CIMG96 64.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

What a job well done!!

I am totally jealous!

I sure hope you will give us some info on the technique!