Build Terraced Steps on a Slope to Solve Water Runoff

My daughter and I went to Lowe's to buy the lumber while the guys cleaned around the area to prepare it, get out the circular saw, etc.  We bought 4X4X8 boards, some stain and a brush to paint the cut ends of the wood.  Fortunately, the boards fit down the middle of our Mazda X5. Once we unloaded, the guys cut the wood into 4' sections using a circular saw.  We used a plane to mark the 4' mark all the way around the board since the circular saw does not cut all the way through from one side.  Then we laid the boards out so everyone could get a vision of what we were building.  This helped a lot, since they did not understand what I was describing to do! I then became very disappointed to hear that we needed to wait a few days for the cut wood to dry before we could stain the ends. :(  With only a little more we could do, we used the rough layout to start leveling where the boards would go, leveling each terraced step, and taking dirt out of the middl...

After researching how to build steps up a slope or hill, I was unsatisfied with the lack of detail on instructions or the presentation of information in a step-by-step format with related pictures or videos.  This is my attempt to provide that as we build our own steps to solve a drainage issue. I hope you will learn something from my posts, or at least laugh at my mistakes so that your project will go perfectly smooth. Day 1:  The first related project that we tackled was a terraced drainage wall in the front yard.  We put sod above and a rock garden below, and it seems to be working well so far in holding some of the water coming from the rest of the neighborhood to straight under our rental townhouse. The one bad thing about rock gardens in this area is that leaves will get in there and diminish the effect.  Oh, well.  It would have been too soggy for grass. Picture of 1st terrace in front yard complete: On to step 2 - the side yard where a lot of t...