Patterned cribs on a smooth wall: a border that stands out

A smooth sleeper wall is clean and simple. Add one course of patterned cribs along the top and it gets a border line that catches the eye. Here's how the idea works, which combinations we list, and the two sizing checks that make it fit properly.

What a crib is

A crib is a half-height sleeper. It's 100 x 100 mm and comes in 2000 mm and 2400 mm lengths. In a sleeper wall it sits on the top course, finishing the wall 100 mm higher than the last full sleeper.

Several of our patterned ranges list a crib alongside their sleepers. That's what makes the border work: you build the body of the wall in a plain, smooth sleeper and finish it with a patterned crib.

Why it works

A smooth face is quiet. A rock, leaf, woodgrain or layered stone face throws shadows and reads as texture from across the yard. Put a thin line of texture at the top of a plain wall and it frames the garden bed behind it, the same way a capping finishes a brick fence.

You can play it two ways:

• Contrast. A grey smooth wall with a charcoal patterned crib on top. The border stands out in colour and texture.
• Tone on tone. A charcoal smooth wall with a charcoal patterned crib. Same colour, different texture, so the border is there when you look for it.

Combinations we list

Each link opens the product with the size preselected: heavy duty 2400 mm for the wall, crib 2400 mm for the border. Both also come in 2000 mm.

Cove, a rock face range, also lists a crib. Staying with one maker keeps the greys and charcoals closest, because colour can differ a little between makers. If you'd like to mix makers, come and see the two side by side before you order.

Check one: thickness

Sort this one first. A crib is 100 mm thick, and it slides between the flanges of the same posts as the sleepers below it.

• A 100 mm crib needs 120UB or 125PFC posts or larger. It won't seat between 100UB or 100PFC flanges.
• Standard sleepers are 75–80 mm thick. In a 120UB they'd sit 20 mm or more short of the crib's face, and the border would step in or out.

The tidy answer is heavy duty sleepers for the body of the wall. They're 100 mm thick, the same as the crib, so the whole wall shares one post size and the faces line up. Comet, Lonsdale and Blackwood all come in heavy duty. If your wall is engineered, the engineer sets the sleeper and post sizes, and the crib has to suit what they specify.

Check two: length

Cribs come in 2000 mm and 2400 mm. Build the wall in 2000 or 2400 mm sleepers and every crib fills a bay as it comes.

If your wall runs on the 2340 or 2350 mm fence-module length, we cut a 2400 mm crib down to size and grind the end so it seats cleanly between the posts. Each crib cut is charged on our cut to length service.

Top course only

Outback Sleepers doesn't engineer its cribs, so they go on the top of the wall, never the base. A border belongs on top anyway, and that's where we'd put a crib from any range.

Remember the crib adds 100 mm to the wall. Order your posts 100 mm longer above ground, and check the new height against the approval rules. In South Australia a wall retaining more than 1.0 m, a wall under a surcharge such as a fence or driveway, or a wall and fence over 2.1 m combined, needs development approval and engineering. Our post on council approval for retaining walls in SA has the detail.

Working out the order

• Sleepers: the number of full courses times the number of bays.
• Cribs: one per bay.
• Posts: 120UB or 125PFC or larger, one more than the number of bays on a straight wall, cut to length with the extra 100 mm allowed for.

The wall builder gives you an indicative materials list from the wall length and height. Every price is on the product page, ex GST, and the crib is listed as a size option on each range that has one.

Want to see it first?

Ring the yard on 0439 361 734 to check what's at the yard, then come in to Virginia and put a crib on top of a sleeper to see how they look together. Or send us the wall length, the height and the combination you like, and we'll get a metro quote back to you within 24 hours, every item priced line by line. Email sales@fenceplinths.com.au.

Cheers,
Alex and the team