Possible to render this?

[paddyjoy]

I have a retaining wall that looks pretty bad because it's a mixture of brick, sandstone and concrete, see pic.

I'm trying to find some way of covering it up to give it more of a uniform look. Would it be possible to put some form of cement render on a surface like this or is it too uneven to work with?

Would appreciate any advice.

86459

[johnc]

Providing you are not after a dead flat wall you should be able to produce something reasonable.

I'd take a two coat approach. Firstly fill and deep bows along with the nooks and crannies. That will ensure that you take out the worst of the dips. Secondly place some bird wire or chook wire over the lot (nail in place with clouts) that will give the plaster something to hold to and more importantly bridge any movement from the different layers of wall.

Fix a staight edge to the top of the wall so you get the top reasonable straight top edge, so long as the edges are staight you can get away with an ordinary result. Lastly apply the sand render with a steel plasters trowel and finish with a wood float, never steel on something like that. Along the top edge you should render last and put an arris on the edge to tidy up.

The mix is 2.5 sand to one of cement, if it gets a bit dry fling a bit of water on with a brush, probably get a friend to help get the stuff on. It will be pretty wavey but the timber float finish will blur the worst of the impact.

Generally you would run render about 6mm thick, the bird wire will allow you to get a bit thicker.
Good luck, there may be some other suggestions such as bagging which would be easier and possibly do the job quite well.

[paddyjoy]

Thanks for the detailed instructions. I have decided to go down the cheap and nasty route and put some lattice over it and cover it in ivy. The wall is 21m long, really uneven and it seems to have quite a bit of movement so I think I will be wasting my time trying to get it to look good!

[Ken-67]

Why would you want to hide a beautiful work of art like that?:))