DIY Diamond Wire Trellis for a Vine
If you want to add some visual interest to the exterior of your home, a beautiful trellis with a climbing vine is one of the most affordable and easy ways to do it! We upgraded a big blank exterior wall on our brick home by adding a DIY wire trellis in a diamond pattern, and we are in LOVE. It's a very doable DIY project, so I've put together a step-by-step tutorial for you.
Y'all, I have to admit that I don't love the brick color of our home. We did look into limewashing it, but after getting a few quotes for it, we decided it was too expensive. So, I started brainstorming other things we could do to make the exterior of our home look a bit more pretty and interesting.
We have seen diamond-shaped wire trellises for climbing vines like this one and loved them. We decided that adding one to the big, blank brick wall by our front porch was a super affordable and relatively easy option to add some beauty and interest. We couldn't be happier with how it turned out! Here's a little before and after to get you excited before diving into the tutorial.
How to Make a Diamond-Shaped Wire Trellis
You can watch the short video below for an overview of this project, which is helpful to give context to what you see in the list of materials needed and the written instructions below :) It will play after a brief ad.
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Materials Needed
FYI, you can buy wire trellis kits (you can check the kit options out here). Joe was in charge of buying the supplies for this project and ordered all the components separately. I do think ordering separate components might give you a bit more flexibility, but the kit might simplify things, lol. Below is what we used.
- Measuring tape
- Painter's tape for rough surfaces
- Drill & masonry drill bits
- Hammer
- Screwdriver
- 1/16th galvanized wire rope + aluminum ferrules (we ordered the 328-foot length, and that was plenty)
- Wire cutters
- Pliers
- Screw eye hooks
- Concrete anchors that fit the diameter of your screw eye hooks (we used these concrete anchors)
- A climbing vine
Step 1: Plan your wire trellis layout
This is by far the most difficult part. Start by measuring the area where you will be installing your trellis. Then, I recommend getting out some graph paper and using a scale that makes sense for your surface area to try different layouts until you find one you like. This took us several tries as you can probably see in the photo below, lol. I wanted the diamonds to be large and wide enough that the shape is still visible even once the vine fills in. And I wanted the diamonds to be more elongated and less square than some wire trellises I've seen.
We knew it would be easier to drill into the mortar than the brick, so we planned the placement of the anchor points with that in mind. It was a lot of “mathing” but we figured it out.
Step 2: Tape your design onto your exterior wall
Don't assume that because it works on paper it will work in real life, lol. We used rough surface painter's tape to help us visualize the plan for the wire trellis on our exterior wall. I don't usually love extra planning steps like this, BUT in this case, it was time well spent. You can see in the photo below that we wound up tweaking where the bottom of the trellis would be after looking at it.
We didn't tape out the entire diamond pattern, but we did use a Sharpie to mark the tape where all the screw eye hooks needed to be placed.
Step 3: Install your anchors and screw eye hooks
Use a drill and masonry bit (in the size recommended for whatever concrete anchors you use) to drill holes for your concrete anchors. Then tap the anchors into place with a hammer and install your screw eye hooks. We found it helpful to use the neck of a screwdriver to help screw them in all the way.
Step 4: Install your wire rope
We used 1/16th galvanized wire rope + aluminum ferrules to install the wire cables. As I mentioned in the materials list, the bundle we ordered included 328 feet of wire rope and a ton of aluminum ferrules. We have plenty of both left over.
There's no right or wrong way to do this. You could use a separate length of rope for each run. But Joe figured out a way to thread the wire rope through so that we only used 3 separate lengths so that we had to make fewer cuts and anchor point attachments. Frankly, my brain couldn't follow how he did it. You just need to thread it to match the diamond trellis pattern you planned.
It's really tough to see the thin wire rope against our brick, but if you look closely in the photo below, you can see the diamond pattern coming to fruition.
Note that you will have to cut the wire rope somewhere along the way, regardless of how you thread it. You need to use SHARP wire cutters. Ours were dull and frankly, it was really hard to cut the wire rope.
To attach the end of the wire rope to a screw eye hook, you first thread the wire rope through an aluminum ferrule.
Next, feed the wire rope through the screw eye hook and then thread it back through the aluminum ferrule to create a loop. At this point, you need to pull your wire taut. Once it's nice and taut, use pliers or something similar to clamp the aluminum ferrule down on the wire rope so that it holds the wire rope firmly in place. Four hands are best for this job. I held the wire taut while Joe clamped the ferrules into place.
Repeat the threading and anchoring steps until your trellis pattern is complete!
Step 5: Add a climbing vine to your wire trellis
We are in Zone 7b of North Carolina. We originally wanted to use a Jasmine vine, but were worried that it could die in a bad freeze here (they happen rarely, but they DO happen sometimes). So we ultimately decided on a Sweet Autumn Clematis Vine. *Note– It took us way longer to get to this project than we originally planned, so we planted our Clematis vines about 9 months before we installed our wire trellis. I do not recommend this because we had a lot of untangling and waste as a result. Ideally, plant your vine once your trellis is ready.
We installed this DIY wire trellis at the end of April. It's been fun watching the Clematis vine fill in. Here's how it looks now!
We are thrilled with how much beauty and visual interest the trellis and vine add to this part of our home! We've already had neighbors tell us that they want to add one to their homes as well, so I'd say it's a hit. What do you think?!
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