Like I said in the 2011 yard post, I built all the retaining walls the year before, but left a gaping hole in two areas that needed stairs. I just couldn’t wrap my head around exactly what I wanted to do in either spot. Plus I ran out of time before winter hit. In spring ’11 I decided to tackle the stairs on the left side of the house first, because I knew WHAT I wanted, I just hadn’t figured out HOW to do it yet. I wanted the stairs to be tucked in between the walls I created. I knew I wanted them in wood, but I had to figure out all the precise measurements. And I knew I’d have to cut the stringers myself because it was a custom job and the basic stringers you can buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot wouldn’t fit. Oh, and I also needed to build some sort of retaining wall to hold back the cliff I had created between the two retaining walls. See where the pirate ship is? Well that dirt just stops. Nothing is holding it back. It made it through one winter like this, but eventually, it would start to erode and wash down toward the swing set if I didn’t hold it back with some sort of retaining wall.
I didn’t want to use the retaining wall blocks in this spot, so I devised a plan to make a wood retaining wall out of 2x10s. I had to dig holes for the 4x4s, put them in place, mark everything, take it all out, attach the three 2x10s to the 4x4s, then slide the whole thing back into the holes. Obviously hubby helped because there ain’t no way I could lift that myself. I then cemented all the 4x4s in the ground. It was a little nerve racking trying to make sure the lower ones matched up perfectly with the tall ones! That 2×4 in the picture was removed after everything else was attached. As usual, all that freaking dirt was dug by hand. You know… with a shovel, not like hands in the dirt. Although it seems like I always do have my hands in the dirt. 
This is what the retaining wall looked like from the top.
Once all that was done it was time to cut and attach the stringers. My advice is measure 100x, draw it all out, and hopefully cut once. It honestly wasn’t as bad as I had always imagined. I checked out a crap-load of books from the library about deck stairs. I never found anything exactly like what I needed, but there was good advice for cutting stringers. Apparently the whole between two retaining walls thing is not so common, but I think it looks a heck of a lot better! Here are the stringers going in. I used 6! It’s probably overkill for sure, but better safe than sorry. If I did it all over again, I would make the steps out of 2×6 and NOT decking (3/4 x6) which would have been a lot stronger and needed less support, therefore fewer stringers. Oh well!
I contemplated putting flagstone or something at the bottom, like as a bottom step, but since we replaced the grass with wood chips it’s not necessary. Adding the decking across the stringers was the easy part and then it was all finished. I filled the gaps between the wood retaining wall and dirt with gravel and added that top layer of 2 pavers on each side. It needed a little something. These are turned sideways, so they’re “thicker” than the ones on the side walls. I must like the way it looks, because I haven’t changed it in the past 3 years. Hehe.
Now it was time to finish laying the landscape fabric and cover with gravel.
I built these in spring ’11, but for whatever reason I didn’t get around to staining them till ’12 and boy did they look a lot better after I did! This picture from ’13 shows they need some TLC. I might replace the decking this summer. At the very least, flip the boards over so that curling in the corner is not so noticeable. I’m sure the misplaced screw holes will drive me crazy. We’ll see.
And this is what they look like this winter. I’m glad they’re getting some off-season use!
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Those wooden stairs look great with your retaining walls.In my opinion, every retaining wall that’s over a few two feet tall needs stairs of some sort. I can’t believe that you did it all on your own though! I wouldn’t dare try to do it myself.
Looks great! How deep did you sink the 4x4s?
I always sink them at least 1/3 underground vs 2/3 above ground. So if they’re 4 ft of post exposed, then at least 2 ft needs to be underground, but given all the pressure against these post I would definitely add more. My guess is that I sunk whatever was left of an 8′ post because digging post holes isn’t hard and you’re better safe than sorry. It’s been so long though that I can’t say for sure.
Looks awesome we are thinking about trying this but not sure about cutting our own stringers. Anyway, really wondering where you go the stone wall blocks from and if there is a product name? thanks and awesome job!
The stringers seemed intimidating to me too, but it wasn’t bad at all! The blocks are from Lowe’s They technically don’t make that color block anymore, but the color that replaced it (maybe 2014) is so close, that I can’t even tell the difference. Lol. Wait for them to go on sale! I bought 11 pallets worth and they matched the sale price for me because I didn’t buy them all at the same time. I think I paid $1.58/stone. I saved THOUSANDS doing it myself! You can too!!
Thank you for sharing this!
Great post. Thank you for sharing this. The transformation looks amazing, and this DIY looks tough but not impossible!
Hi Liz
Love the look of the rise and run and width of these stairs. Are you able to provide measurements of the rise/run and width of stairs?
Also are you able to provide measurement of height of the retaining wall?
Thanks!
Kelly
Talk about rehashing an old thread! I’m working on quite a similar project and wanted to ask how your stairs have held up over the years. Thank you for sharing your process and I hope mine comes out half as nice as yours.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing. I’m stealing your idea because I have similar problem. My only concern would be regarding hand rails meeting code requirements. I’m sure it depends where you live as requirements can be stricter than others. We know someone who had same design like yours and their home insurance was sued because a guest tripped over a step and once lawyers got involved it was determined the steps didn’t meet code. Anyways, thank you for solving my issue.