This might be unnecessarily expensive and dressy, but since I've seen some nice walls combining wood and brick, with brick as the pillars or perhaps a low brick wall with wood above, if you wanted to tie things together, you might be able to design something in which there were brick or stone pillars or partial pillars as part of the deck--someone bail me out here!--or something similar that integrates the 2 materials so that you didn't just have a deck tacked onto a brick wall. Or maybe it might require that the deck design included some chunky posts or corner post tops that balanced the heavier look of the stone.

It's not surprising the aggregate quote is higher. Do you plan to stay in the property for a long time? Go with the longer lasting, hassle free material. I've dug up a 25-30 year old timber garden wall that was buried for ~5 years by another landscaping project. I've never seen something teaming with so many termites. Once whatever preservatives are added leach out, you have a termite paradise.

Yep, that's what he's talking about doing! I think he's just being lazy and wanting to get this done faster. I am doing the retaining wall (it's only 2 feet) and he doesn't want to wait on me... is my opinion. But, he's out of luck because I can't find anyone who thinks his way is right or smart! Thanks for your input Dave...I appreciate it!

Keep in mind we're seeing pieces of things, not the complete situation. You'll need to apply your engineering knowledge, too, so as to not create damage that we can't possibly warn you about on account of our lack of seeing what's there. It looks to me like you could shore up the deck structure with various temporary bracing set back from the deck end... as best you can. It might include some angled 4"x4"s and sunch. And once you begin the excavation, you'll need to proceed without delay. some homeowners take forever to get projects done, but it would not be good to do that here. The retaining wall would need to be L-shaped, with the top tying back into grade in order to not suffer an erosion problem from water washing out behind the wall. I wouldn't advice doing just this single wall. I think you need another L-shaped retaining wall at a lower elevation, oriented perpendicular to the main R wall. Of course, any plan like this is brainstorming, not a construction plan. You must work out all the details: wall lengths, depths, elevations, etc. Use stakes and level string on site for mocking up, to help with roughing out some guesstimations