Cladding a Concrete Retaining Wall in Sandstone

[Miles]

G'day,
I want to clad an ugly concrete retaining wall, but the only thing I can find is formal looking sandstone, stacked stone or "crazy paving". I was after something like half a bush rock, with a flat face on one side and natural looking on the outside. Anyone know of anything? Ta.

[Planned LScape]

You will have to do some searching to find something like that in natural rock. There are concrete products that are exactly what you described, that look like sandstone, but most sandstone you will find is either in full rock/boulder form or the pavers as you described.

If you're keen and cant find anything you might be able to buy some smaller sandstone rock and split it yourself, with the right tools you can split pieces off and use it then. Gettign it all the right thickness though will be hard, some rocks split easier than others.

[patty]

mate the only thing that comes to mind if you want to have a bush rock finish is go to a nursery that specialises in rockeries I picked up some flat pieces ( martins creek slate) cost about 160 bucks for a 6x4 trailer load and and yes it is very hard to get hold of but both sides are flat and the nursery and there is no way i think you can cut them i tried everything diamond blade and stone cutting blade in a 9 inch grinder and the stone just laughed at it the only thing i did not try was a wet saw but i dont think that would have touched it and if you try and split them some will shatter the face side taking the natural colour of the stone away looking very bodgy a nightmare of a job


I remember years back you use to be able to buy fake internal brick walls in different patterns and finishes for houses very popular in the 60's I dont know if they still make the stuff or whether they even made a exterior equivalent..

I just finished putting in a interlocking retaining wall 20 mts long 600 high x 2 and the reason was the old wall was a bushrock wall flat finish face and all the motar joints had opened up and it really was an eyesore grass and weeds growing through...

If you really want to go ahead with something like this check the newspapers for bushrocks etc or nurseries as I said not easy to get hold of as every man and his dog wants it...

Have I talked you out of it?? failing that have you thought about bagging or rendering it?



Glad Im not doing it!

[Miles]

Thanks for the replies, gents. I'm going to go with the concrete look-a-likes. It sounds less painful than using the real thing!

[pawnhead]

I made my own from sand/cement, for a barbie I built last year:



Starting to get a bit mouldy now, but that adds to the 'natural' character:



I'm going to get hold of a gas barbie to sit in the middle, and have some sort of bench top, either stone or timber, for each side of it.
I'm considering making enough 'faux stone' to clad the foundations of the whole house out the front. If I do, I think I'll leave 10mm spacing between them to look like mortar joints instead of the dry stacked look.