Location is everything, I do love my house though but I often think if it wasn't where it is would I still love it as much and find its flaws quirky..and the answer is no, but it is where it is and it is where I want to be..so love, love, love

" How wonderful it is online that now we can all see what amazing ppl are creating. We always have had amazing ppl making such things, but usually reserved for family keepsakes, or nanas specialty. Put down the iPhone and pick up a craft I say!" ~mldesign0401 Indeed. I'm often gobsmacked at what people can do. And it's great to see the process in pictures. I do spend a lot more time looking at others creations the actually doing something myself! One of the traps of everything shared online. I do love seeing the creations that didn't go as planned too! So funny. It's great that people have the sense of humour to still share their "failures". At the end of the day, there's more benefit in the process of creating right? At least they had a go.

A lot of the time they build a core filled concrete block wall then construct another stone wall against it. The concrete block wall takes the job of retaining while the stone is for looks only. It does depend on what purpose the wall is performing. For example a retaining wall higher than 600mm (usually) needs engineering by a structural engineer which is easier to achieve with core filled concrete block on footings rather than just solid stone. You never mentioned the purpose of the wall which is a vital detail as there can be numerous ways to achieve similar outcomes.

Looks like a difficult one, we have this issue sometimes with a tiling equivalent. If the works done before hand are not straight, flat etc, it can be very difficult and even damaging to try and install something flat over the top (benchtop, tiles etc). We see dodgy plastering jobs that get tiled onto, it is virtually impossible to do a good job if the base work is off. Smaller tiles will show obviously and larger ones will have a great risk of breaking with these small voids under. Therefor the tradie installing the 'aesthetic' aspect cops the brunt of mistakes made by the trades before hand. It can thus be difficult to blame them for this, as it doesn't necessarily indicate their poor workmanship. However, if you are paying a professional to do what it takes to complete the job in a high quality manner, then there is always a way to fix this ($$$). If it was going to be a foreseeable problem, and cost you more money, he could have asked you if you would like him to make more expensive changes to achieve the perfect finish, or continue as is at the risk of it being sub-par finish. That should have been your choice to make on consolidation. So it is a tricky one for sure! Are the cabinets below new or is it just a new benchtop?