The Martins' Minutes: Our new sidewalk!

Remember how we created a front door to our house? (If not go here to catch up.) Well, it's not much use if you don't have a sidewalk leading up to the door! The foyer project wasn't completed in time to start the sidewalk, so we walked through the grass for about six months until the snow and frost went away (OK, well maybe it was more than six months).

We decided not to go with just pouring concrete because we figured it would cost a lot more if we went that route. Instead, we looked into paver stones. The obvious first step is to clear the path (and when you don't have a wheelbarrow, you improvise with the kids' wagon and a tarp).

Below you can see where all the dirt went... I always wanted to fill in the gap near that retaining wall... it seemed to me that the water just drained right down the inside of it... now hopefully it will drain away.

Removal of the dirt was actually probably the easiest part...

Below you can see how I solved the drain spout (which would have gone right over the sidewalk). It now drains out into the yard... time will tell how well this works. With the rented compactor, we were ready to get the base of the sidewalk ready.

The trick with the base is to include the suggested slope on the sidewalk (so water drains away from the house). Here's how it looked after adding the first layer of gravel and compacting it. After the second layer, we were now ready to start laying the pavers.

As we started to lay the stones down, I was a bit nervous because they shifted on top of the leveling sand... in the end, it all worked out nicely, but being the first time, I wondered if we weren't doing something wrong.

Thankfully, adding the plastic edge along the sides helped to pull those loose stones in tightly. The next step was to add a paver-locking sand and actually run that compactor over the stones (which was a bit nerve-wracking). No stones were harmed and we were able to clean up and make it look pretty.

Here are several pictures of the final product.

If you look real closely, you can see the cross. We only added this unique design to the first set of stones. The rest follow the pattern that Theresa came up with so that we could complete the project without having to cut any stones (it actually took a lot of work and I was very grateful).

In case you haven't noticed yet, the sidewalk ends abruptly before the stairs to the front door... this is because one day we expect to build a front porch... leaving the sidewalk "unfinished" will hopefully serve as motivation to get to the porch project.