A Rotten Retaining Wall

As you can see, the existing retaining wall along the driveway is in need of repair. The railroad ties are leaning away. What you can't see is one of them is visibly rotten.


Work has begun! We've taken all the railroad ties out and found many rotten ones. This job needed doing even more than we first realized!


Since we're pulling out the wall anyway, we've also decided to add a walkway to the front door. It's rather odd that there wasn't one before. Like Larry says, we live in the South and we out to be hospitable. What a house without a walk up to it?


Now. What materials do we use to rebuild the wall? Railroad ties? No way!! We talked about a concrete wall but didn't think that would be very attractive. We finally decided upon the landscape bricks that are so popular these days.


We have made progress. Larry has done most of the work; I help where I can, moving the truck up and down the driveway and bringing bricks to him for placement. He has shoveled two tons of rock from the bed of the pick-up to the wall.



The tallest part of the wall is done and we're just about to the point where the walkway will begin. We'll cut into the existing lawn and curve the brick into a broad approach and narrow it to match the width of the front steps - about 6' wide. If I don't get photos of the progress, I will at least show you the finished project... whenever it gets finished.