How To Build A Timber Retaining Wall - This Old House

Shopping List for How to Build a Timber Retaining Wall:
- 1x3 wood stakes and nylon string, used to establish layout lines for timbers
- 6x8-inch pressure-treated landscaping timbers, used to build retaining wall
- wood preservative, to treat cut ends of timbers
- 3/4-inch stone, used as base and drainage material
- landscaping filter fabric, used to prevent soil from clogging drainpipe
- 4-inch-diameter perforated drainage pipe, for draining water away from retaining wall
- 1/2-inch-diameter (No. 4) x 4-foot-long metal reinforcing bar, used to stake timbers and dead men to ground
- 12-inch landscaping screws, for fastening together the landscaping timbers
- bark mulch, used to cover the ground in front of the retaining wall

Tools for How to Build a Timber Retaining Wall:
- hand tamper, used to compact the soil and stone base
- wheelbarrow, used to transport stone and mulch to jobsite
- shovel, for excavating the ground
- circular saw, used to cut timbers
- impact driver, used to drive landscaping screws into timbers
- drill/driver with 9/16-inch-diameter spade bit, used to bore holes in timbers for rebar stakes
- sledgehammer, used to drive in rebar and wood stakes
- 6-foot level
- torpedo level
- foam paint brush