A Stone Walkway Project

I wanted to show you a project that I've been planning for a long, long time -- just couldn't get Tom motivated about it, and when I explain, you'll see why. On the West side of our house, when it rains, it floods! For 17 years, every time it rained, if we wanted to walk around the side of the house toward the back yard or back deck, we had a swampy, muddy mulchy walkway! Finally, I had a lightbulb moment, and decided to try a walkway project. I thought that a red stone walkway edged on both sides would solve the mud and swampy problem, and provide a much cleaner walkway to the backyard and garage (our garage is a one-car detached garage). I approached Tom with the idea, and he, after hearing the details, agreed! So, we bought the edging at Home Depot -- Tom bought this really cool edging where it you buy these hard plastic stakes that you drive into the edging's molded holes -- the edging stays down more secure and the line is more smooth than other edging that I've seen in the past. Tom then lined the walkway with this fabric-type stuff that is supposed to keep weeds out - it is a very tight woven fabric, so we'll see! Then we needed the stone! So, his boss recommended this stone and mulch place off Rt. 40 (which is a commercial type highway) and off we went. When we got there, there were quite a few types of stone from which to choose. I immediately was drawn to the "Redstone" which is more like a light reddish-brown to me. I liked the "natural" look of it and didn't want anything hideous to stand out or look tacky -- so Tom got a truckload (and his truck is a smaller one) of it, and off we went. Now, we do not own a wheelbarrow (can you believe that!), so poor Tom backed up his truck to the walkway area and with a shovel unloaded that truckload of redstone! And, there's more to the story -- he didn't have enough redstone in his one truckload to cover the entire walkway -- so back to the store to buy another truckload -- and another few hours back home, hand shoveling the stone into the walkway! I felt so bad for him! I offered to run and buy a wheelbarrow -- he said, "no - I don't want to wait, I want to just finish the job!" So here's to Tom and I just had to share the finished walkway!!

The top photo is the view looking from the left front corner of our house toward the back where our detached garage is facing (white garage door). We have a chain link fence around the back half of the house and you are looking at the gateway into the left side yard where we have a 40 ft. sugar maple tree to the left (I really don't know how tall it is - but it is precariously tall to me -- another story, another day). The people who lived here before us put these landscape timbers around the sugar maple base, raising it up and made a square foundation. I have ivy in front of the left and right side of the gate as well as behind the left and right side of the gate.

The second photo shows the view behind the gate (you are now in my West side yard facing the front street). To the left is the ivy and to the right you can see the timber square foundation around the base of our sugar maple with more ivy cascading over that. Well, that's what we've been up to and what I do when I'm not blogging or making cards and just a small peek into my life at My Little Yellow Cottage. Hope it was some what interesting...