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DIY Retaining Wall Ideas + Step-By-Step Guide

Rolling hills are a beautiful sight but can create quite a headache when they’re rolling right through your garden.

Making a sloped backyard work for you doesn’t have to be difficult. Installing a DIY retaining wall in your yard can be a great way to create distinct spaces that highlight your natural landscaping while ensuring it’s safe to stroll.

A great thing about building a DIY retaining wall is that you can use many different materials, some of which you may already have laying around from previous projects. 

Pouring concrete can often be your cheapest option to build a DIY retaining wall. If you’re in a hurry to get your retaining wall built, it can be one of the fastest options too!

 

Step by Step DIY Retaining Walls

If you follow the steps below, you’ll have a custom concrete retaining wall in no time:

  1. Measure your space and design your retaining wall
  2. Build forms based on your design
  3. Clear the area of soil and debris
  4. Dig out footings for your base measuring at least 12 inches below your groundline
  5. Set up your forms to pour concrete into
  6. Insert metal rebars for enforcement
  7. Pour concrete footings and walls
  8. Allow the concrete to cure
  9. Carve contraction joints into your wall to allow for concrete shrinkage over time
  10. Remove forms and install drainage

Poured concrete is a cheap DIY retaining wall idea that only needs a couple of days of work to complete!

When you pour concrete, you have many options to add textures and colours. You can even accent your retaining wall with embedded materials like stones or shells. Concrete can be one of the most customisable options for your retaining wall.

While you can buy bags of concrete from Bunnings and mix them yourself, hiring a small-batch supplier like Concrete Taxi to pour pre-mixed concrete directly into your forms will save a lot of effort. 

When building a DIY retaining wall, use Concrete Taxi to get small-batch concrete delivered right to your door.

 

Cheap DIY Retaining Wall Ideas

Build in a flower bed

For a neat-looking garden, you can build a flower bed directly on top of your retaining wall. Not only will these make your DIY retaining walls look stunning, they’re a smart use of available space. As long as you’ve built draining into your retaining wall, this is a great project to try.

 

Create a patio space

If you’re hoping to gain distinct spaces within your yard by building out a retaining wall, you should plan for one of them to be a patio! This is an easy project that won’t require much more work. 

After levelling out areas in your yard with your retaining wall, determine where you want your patio to be. You can lay down stone or pour concrete to create flooring, and then all you’ll need is furniture to enjoy your new patio!

 

Install a water feature

Closing your eyes and listening to the sounds of trickling water can be the most peaceful way to start and end your days in your yard. A calming attraction, a water feature can seem like a luxury but doesn’t need to be. 

This can be another fun DIY project to do after building your retaining wall. Water features can be built directly into a DIY retaining wall with a small pond or pool placed at the bottom of your wall. Inserting a pump can circulate the water easily from the pool back up to the top of your retaining wall.

 

Integrate steps

While integrating steps will take some more planning before building your retaining wall, they’re both a beautiful and practical design feature for your yard. Steps will grant easy access between levels of your yard while ensuring that levels appear seamlessly integrated rather than harshly divided.

 

Add lighting

Another practical but beautiful feature to add, installing solar lamps atop your retaining wall will not only tie your landscaping into your design but will also ensure safety while walking through your yard in the evening.

There are so many cheap DIY retaining wall ideas to try out depending on your yard’s needs!

Our best DIY tip is to eliminate stress bycalling in help when needed. Because it’s such a low-cost and easy material to work with, many ideas call for poured concrete in their executions, but it can be stressful to mix yourself.

Save yourself the work and potential mess, and outsource! Use Concrete Taxi to get small-batch concrete delivered right to your door.

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2 Responses
  1. It was helpful when you said to measure the space and clear debris from the area. My fiance told me last night at dinner about how he wants to build a retaining wall in our backyard within the next couple of weeks after he gets the materials. I’ll pass these tips along to him once he gets the right materials to start building with.

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