I am currently rebuilding a retaining wall along my driveway. The previous was built about 15 years ago and made of a single layer thick of 2x4x6 bricks. First of all, this is too thin of a wall to hold up about 4' of dirt. After years of weathering, moss and tree roots, the wall began to fail. With the failure of the wall, the steps (made of the same bricks) that were between the wall and driveway also began to fail. With loose bricks holding the wall and loose bricks on the steps, this became too dangerous too ignore. So about two years ago I started pulling out the loose bricks and little by little the steps started to disappear. Then when most of the steps were removed and the weather got better, I decided to officially start the project. I got some quotes for getting it done but most were around $2000. To save some money I decided to build the wall myself and only pay for the steps. I have built some walls with stackable landscape blocks but the front of the blocks were rounded and taper back as the wall rises. I wanted a flat faced wall so that when the steps were added, they would fit better together. I did not want to use small bricks again because it would take a lot of bricks and a lot of mortaring. I decided to use 8x8x16 building blocks. Basic flat face building blocks are not very nice to be a viewable wall so I decided to use split face building blocks. This block has a rough face but is still somewhat flat faced. I have also done some research on building a block wall since I have never done this before. This project is turning out to be much larger and more difficult then I was expecting. Below are some pics as I go through this project. I wish I took some picks of the original wall but I thought about documenting this project after I have removed the steps and wall. But I will keep new pics coming as I go.
