How to Build a Mortared Stone Wall to Beautify Your Backyard

Few landscape projects add more value to a home than building a mortared stone wall. Not only does it serve as a secure boundary to your property, but a stone wall built with natural stones bonded together with mortar also adds an elegance and durability that just can't be matched by any fence. While the work is physically hard and time consuming, it is not technically difficult, and a DIYer who wants to attempt this work will save a lot of money.

Building with natural stone is a complicated skill that takes many years to perfect, but DIYers can achieve good results if they simplify the construction. Follow local code guidelines for the location and height of your wall and obtain a building permit if required for your local municipality. For DIYers, limiting the wall to 3 feet or so in height makes the job much more manageable. Before construction on your mortared stone wall begins, you'll need to pour a good solid concrete footing for your wall following code guidelines that will specify depth and any reinforcement requirements.

In most regions, the footing will need to extend down below the winter frost line. This means that your footing may require a relatively thin 8-inch poured concrete slab if you live in a mild climate, or it may need to be 3 to 4 feet or even more if you live in a region with extreme winters. Small slabs can be poured with bagged dry concrete you mix yourself, while large foundations will probably require concrete delivery from a ready-mix company.

A mortared stone wall can be built with almost any type of natural stone, but DIYers will find it easiest to use cut blocks of limestone, sandstone or granite. These blocks will be roughly the same thickness but will have varying lengths that make it relatively easy to assemble the wall. As the Natural Stone Council observes, limestone is a relatively affordable stone for landscape use, as huge quantities are quarried in the U.S., mostly in the Midwest. This is not a stone that needs to be shipped from overseas sources. The look of limestone can vary depending on where it was quarried, so make sure you review actual samples before ordering it for delivery.

If you were to view it in time-lapse photography, the process of building a mortared stone wall would seem rather simple. A trench for the footing is dug, forms are built and concrete is poured for the footing and allowed to cure. Then, rows of stones are stacked atop one another one at a time and are adhered in place with mortar. For a freestanding mortared stone wall, there are generally two rows of ​face stones​ laid side by side down the length of the wall, with occasional ​tie stones​ set perpendicular to the face stones, which span across the width of the wall to give the structure lateral strength.

In practice, though, the work is hard and time consuming. It is best to give yourself a full week or more to build even a short wall, laying one course of stone at a time and allowing the mortar to dry as each course is laid. Such a wall will be quite heavy, so it is very important that it remains perfectly plumb and level as each course of stone is added to the wall. An off-balance wall will be very unstable and dangerous to any unsuspecting leaner or clumsy person who accidentally backs into it.

Before beginning construction on your wall, call 811—the national before-you-dig hotline—to ensure that you won't be running into any utility lines with your shovel. Once you've determined it's safe to begin, dig and pour a concrete footing to serve as the wall's foundation following local code requirements. Make sure the concrete has fully cured before you begin the wall construction.