How To Design and Build A Stone Wall

A stone wall can make a beautiful addition to your garden or landscape. There are a variety of different stones you can use to achieve the effect you want. Building a stone wall is hard work, but the end result can be very satisfying.

Your first step is to choose what type of stone you would like to use. It will take quite a large number of stones to build the wall. For structural purposes limestone, slate, and shale work well. There are so many beautiful stones, it may be difficult to choose from them all. Once you have decided on your type of stone, you will need to determine your wall's volume by multiplying the length times the height times the thickness of the wall. Many stone supplies sell stone by cubic yards. If your measurements are in feet, divide by 27 in order to get the cubic yardage. Other stone suppliers may sell by the ton. Depending on the density it will be somewhere between 12 to 16 cubic feet.

The most obvious place to obtain your stone is through a stone supplier, but if you have property that has old stone walls or lots of rock on the property you may already have your source of stone. You may also be able to get quarry waste if there is a quarry nearby. Construction sites might be another good source for finding stone. Or if you have access to old cellar holes or abandoned buildings you can find fabulous stone there.

Once you have your stone you will need to sort through it to assemble your "jigsaw puzzle." Cornerstones need to have two faces that are fairly flat that can meet at right angles. The capstones need to be flat and broad. Ideally your capstones will have enough length to span the entire top of your stone wall. Tie stones need to have enough length for extending through the entire thickness of the wall. They help to strength the wall by bearing onto the smaller stones. Risers are large stones that extend up through the narrower courses and create nice visual breaks from the horizontal joint lines.

A stone wall that is freestanding doesn't need deep footings like the foundation for a building. However you do need to have good drainage underneath it. Usually you will want to dig through the top soil to reach down to the solid earth which can be tamped flat and firm. For this you will need to dig a shallow trench.

Outside of the footing stones drive stakes into the ground and stretch some mason's string between the stakes. The string will help you keep your face stones properly align as you lay them. After the ends of the wall are in progress, the string lines between the two ends will help to guide you when you are laying the middle of the wall.

Always start on the wall's ends first. Build the corners before building any of the other sections. You will want to have corner stones that have a minimum of two flat faces which meet closely at 90 degree angles. Use a line level for keeping an eye on the line of mason string as you continue to add stone in the middle of your wall.