How to build a patio {part 3}: Building a retaining or seat wall

I have noticed a lot of you stopping by from Pinterest. Thanks for looking!

To catch you up to speed on our project:
{How to build a patio}
{How to trench a downspout}
{How to build a patio: part 2}
{How to build a pergola}
{How to build a patio: part 4}

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Building a retaining or seat wall

After we built our pergola we added a seat wall and columns to each pergola post. We knew that this entire patio project was going to be hard work. And hard work it is (that's an understatement!).

Basically, after we knew that the gravel floor was level, we started laying the columns and seat wall. {My previous blogs are some very important steps}

The seat wall and column stone we used are Highland Stone in Brownstone.

To make the columns we laid four column stones around the pergola post. To make the column just rotate the pattern, but the second layer was a little more tricky because we had to build the seat wall into the column, which required more cutting.

Next we started laying the seat wall.  We took a string and made a straight line to follow. Building the wall, went pretty fast. The stone comes with three different sizes and we just alternated sizes, not making any specific pattern.

We had to cut the ends of the wall by each of the columns using a diamond saw blade.  (which I found out, doesn't really have diamonds in it) Josh used a circular saw that only went through HALF the stones, he used a chisel and hammer to split the stone the rest of the way. 

Like I mentioned above, one of the tricky parts of building the seat wall, is "anchoring" it to the column. On the second and fourth layer of the seat wall we built the wall into the column. Which made for a lot of extra cutting on the columns.

 We attached the stone with Landscape glue. Which is extremely sticky stuff.

You can see in the photo below the second and fourth layers going into the column where there are no gaps. The first and third layers were cut up to the column.

 

Next we added the wall caps. We put these on using the landscape glue and made cuts at the end.

 

Our seat wall and pergola columns are done!  We just need to add the column caps, but we haven't decided on what we want yet.

Excuse our mess! ;)

You can also see in the photo above that we have started to lay the patio pavers.  It's almost done, yahoo!