Retaining Wall: Cool Trick

I love seeing things in my daily life that make MyFixitUpLife better. Such was the case when I spotted this cool real wood retaining wall trick while we walked the wide paths at our local Elmwood Park Zoo on a fun FixitUp Family outing.

Call me crazy, but we love our work so much that we see it everywhere (it puts me in mind of the Paul Simon line “He sees Angels in the Architecture spinning in infinity”). Just uphill from the bison corral I noticed this retaining wall and stopped to check it out.

I’ve built or seen walls like this for tiered gardens and otherwise holding back a hill on three sides. I’ve even seen Roger Cook build one on Ask This Old House (his was built with pressure treated 8x8x…sweet). Anyway, the bison weren’t stampeding or anything so I had time to check out this cool detail. The typical technique is that you step back your timbers in relation to the slope of the hill.

While I refrain from building even low retaining walls with anything other than 6×6, the carpenter or landscaper who built this one made what the interior trim guys call “shadow lines” by alternating, stepping back, and chamfering 4×6 members. It’s a subtle but lovely detail.

Simple, smart, and effective. Different. Nice.