No down payment. You pay when the project is finished.
Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM · Capitol Hill, Seattle
Hardscaping · Magnolia
Magnolia is a hill with a cliff on two sides, and that single fact decides most hardscape work here. The crown around the Village and Lawton Park is gentle enough to treat like anywhere else, but the western and southern edges fall hard toward Puget Sound through bluff sediments that behave nothing like the glacial till under the rest of the neighbourhood. Those sediments are looser, they hold water differently, and a wall designed for till can be the wrong wall fifty yards away. The practical consequence is that terracing usually beats a single tall wall here — two or three shorter walls stepping down cost less, avoid the engineering a tall one triggers, and leave usable ground between the levels instead of one cliff face replacing another.
Artificial turf lawn and paved patio running the full width of a single-storey Magnolia house
What we get called about
Magnolia is the neighbourhood where the permit question comes up first and most often. Large parts of the bluff carry steep slope and landslide-prone designations, and Perkins Lane has a well-documented history of ground movement. Inside an Environmentally Critical Area the usual four-foot retaining wall exemption does not apply at all, so a wall of any height may need a permit. The second Magnolia constant is the view: on a bluff lot, the value of the property is the sightline, and a wall or a structure in the wrong place takes it away permanently.
Worth knowing in Magnolia
Get the drainage designed for the whole slope rather than per element. On a Magnolia bluff lot the patio, the walls and the paths are all on the same water path, and solving them one at a time usually means solving the first one twice.
The method
The sequence does not change between neighbourhoods — what changes is the ground it is applied to. Full detail on the hardscaping service page.
Before anything is priced. Where the water arrives, where it currently goes, and where it will go once a few hundred square feet of ground stops absorbing it. On a sloping lot this changes the design, not just the drainage line.
Walls before paving, drainage before both, and anything needing machine access before the route in is closed off. A correct sequence is most of what keeps a multi-element job from costing twice.
Wall height, Environmentally Critical Area, impervious surface limits. Three elements each individually exempt can still cross a threshold together, and finding that out mid-build is the expensive version.
Excavation to the depth the use requires, compaction in lifts, and the drainage placed as the structure goes up rather than added at the end. None of this is visible when the job is done, which is why it is where a cheap quote saves money.
Paving, wall faces, caps, stone. The part everyone is paying attention to, and the fastest part of the job when the three steps above were done properly.
Edges, jointing, the soft landscaping back in, and the levels checked against where the water is meant to go. We walk the finished fall lines with you rather than asserting them.
What it costs in Magnolia
Magnolia hardscape runs the full $18 to $120 per square foot range because the two halves of the neighbourhood are different jobs. Flat work on the crown prices like anywhere in the city. Anything on the bluff side carries slope access, more excavation and more drainage, and a whole-garden hardscape on a falling lot here commonly lands between $40,000 and $120,000.
You pay after the project is fully completed.
The estimate you sign is the price you pay.
Spread the cost with no interest.
Covers hardscape work; vegetation excluded.
Local questions
General questions about this service are on the service page. These are the ones that only come up here.
More often than elsewhere, because much of the western and southern edge falls inside Environmentally Critical Area designations where the usual four-foot wall exemption stops applying at any height. Paving can also run into impervious surface limits that count the patio, driveway and paths together rather than separately. We check the parcel against the city map before quoting rather than after, because on this side of Magnolia the designation changes the design and not just the paperwork.
Terrace, in almost every case on this hill. Two four-foot walls set apart generally cost less than one eight-foot wall, because the taller wall needs engineering and deeper footings and will usually need a permit the shorter pair avoid. On a view lot there is a second reason: a single tall wall takes the sightline that the lot is worth money for, and stepped terraces keep it.
Yes, and it is the thing to get right here. The crown is glacial till — dense, slow-draining, predictable. The bluff edges are looser sediments that move and drain differently, so base depths and drainage design that work in Lawton Park are not automatically right three streets west. We dig test holes on sloping ground before pricing rather than assuming the whole neighbourhood behaves the same way.
Longer than the same job on a flat lot, and access is usually the reason rather than the work itself. Where a machine can reach the back garden, a multi-element job runs three to six weeks. Where everything is barrowed down a side return, the same scope can take half as long again. We walk the access route before quoting and tell you which of the two you have.
Serving Magnolia and surrounding neighbourhoods
Magnolia Village · Magnolia Bluff · Perkins Lane · Lawton Park · Briarcliff · Interbay edge
98199
Recent work
Design & BuildView full sizeMagnolia gives up a downtown view if the garden is cut to face it. Slab terrace at the top of the slope for the fire table, charcoal block wall holding the bank behind, turf on the level below.
2 photos
Artificial TurfView full sizeThe back of the house opened onto mud. Now it opens onto a patio and a lawn that drains.
Design & BuildView full sizeA run of large-format slabs along the wall line ties the upper slope to the lower lawn — the usual Magnolia problem of a garden split across two levels by the grade.
StoneworkView full sizeMulti-tone slate laid in a random pattern, running out to a clipped hedge at the edge of the property.
We come out, look at the ground, and put a fixed written price together. No deposit, and it does not change once agreed.
Free estimate
Three minutes on the form. We reply during office hours, Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM, and we come out and look at the site before quoting anything.
Or call (425) 331-9811
Thank you — we have your details. We reply during office hours, Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM. If it is urgent, call (425) 331-9811.
