I absolutely love free stuff so when I saw some railroad ties pop up on facebook marketplace I practically ran over there to grab them! Ironically, I had just been researching using railroad ties in landscaping projects and had JUST the place for these.  When we built the main part of the new patio, we leveled it out by scraping some dirt away from the top and moving it to the retaining wall at the bottom.  This worked just fine, but left the grassy part of the yard about 8″ higher than the grade of the patio.  It was pretty hard to mow and made an awkward step down.

I’m going to use the ties as a small retaining wall so there’s an obvious step down onto the patio and the grass is flat and easy to mow!

Those railroad ties were the perfect length and literally exactly what I wanted! I love it when a plan comes together!