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About this Project
Retaining walls solve all kinds of problems if you’re blessed (or cursed) with a contoured lot. You can use them to transform that hill you dread mowing into a low-maintenance terraced garden. They can flatten out unusable sections of lawn and gracefully fix erosion problems at the same time.
Design Features
Lightweight, yet strong
Durable, rot-resistant wood
Unique, easy-to-build posts
Flexible design
Assemble most of it in your garage!
Building a retaining wall usually means hard, brutal work—not so with this wall. We’ve designed a lightweight but rugged alternative to heavy timber walls or stacked concrete blocks. This attractive, flexible design has these additional features:
It uses standard treated dimensional lumber.
It’s easily scaled down for lower or shorter-length walls.
It employs simple bolt-and-nail fastening techniques.
It can be almost entirely preassembled in the shelter of your garage.
You don’t have to be a master carpenter to build this retaining wall. If you’ve ever built your own deck, relax—you already have the tools and skills you need. This wall is easier and more forgiving than any deck design. We’ll outline the key details you need to know and coach you on the use of a couple of specialty tools: a skid-steer loader (Photo 4) for the grunt work and a builder’s level for the layout (see “Rent a Builder’s Level,” below). We’ll demonstrate the assembly, layout, backfilling and anchoring techniques that will make you comfortable tackling this project yourself.
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