What To Do With This Front Garden Wall ?

[StudWall]

So I've been thinking recently i'd like to do something with my road-facing front garden wall, but i'm stuck for feasable ideas.



As were on the corner its about 19m long in total so rebuilding it is out of the question.

The blocks are in fair shape, just need a good wash but structurally they're ok.
Some of the top capping stones are loose as are the little brick pillars.

My thoughts are (in order of preference) so far:

1) knock out pillars and blocks underneath to floor level, replace with new bricks and small pillars, render between pillars only, and paint off-white (ish)

2) remove pillars and capping stones, replace capping stones to entire length and render wall, paint off-white (ish)

3) remove pillars and capping stones, replace capping stones to entire length and cover with brick effect cladding

4) a better idea someone can come up with

 

[diy lou]

I think I would get rid of the pillars and cap the gaps where they were, render and paint - much the same as you suggested...why do people leave us with these legacies to sort out!!

Shame you can't get a colour that would match your house - I originally thought a sort of creamish colour but it won't really match your house but then bricks painted brick colour generally looks awful...bit stumped on that one!

 

[StudWall]

Thanks for your message.

I had considered rendering the whole thing but, i don't really like the way it looks, a bit too modern for me, that's why i thought about keeping the pillars, to break up the blandness a bit.

On closer inspection a lot of the mortar between the blocks looks cracked, so i might end up pulling it down and doing something else

I'm thinking something like this: