Retaining walls add style to a home

Photos: A look at some stylish options for adding a retaining wall to your home's yard, Feb. 2013.

Homeowners are incorporating retaining walls into their front and back yard landscaping designs. Retaining walls can be used as ways to add built-in seating and raised-bed gardens.

At this Vinings house, the second and third walls were added and multiple terraces were created to get more use out of the back yard. A fire pit was added on one level. Fire pits and fireplaces are popular outdoor living features.

Layered Goshen stone was used to create this groomed, stacked wall. To save on costs, use locally sourced stone.

Rotting timber walls on the backside of the house were replaced with a Rockwood retaining wall system. A new set of steps, with built-in lights for easy footing, replaced the old wood steps.

After the new retaining walls were built, a patio, fire pit and seating wall were created on a lower level. The homeowners, who bought their Suwanee house in 2000, love their new outdoor space.

The Cor-Ten steel retaining walls follow the contour of the walkway. The weathering steel walls are interspersed with curving stone walls, which feature a bluestone cap.

Made of durable Cor-Ten steel, the rusty retaining walls were embedded into smooth concrete seat walls.

In this Atlanta-area home, six-foot-high concrete walls with a stucco finish were built to replace the high-maintenance wooden fence. The walls were capped with blue stone. A water wall empties into a fish pond. A seating wall, where the homeowners can linger, was added.

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Homeowners are incorporating retaining walls into their front and back yard landscaping designs. Retaining walls can be used as ways to add built-in seating and raised-bed gardens.

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