How do you design a pathway?

The very first thing to consider when designing your own inexpensive stone pathway is location and destination! We needed a stone pathway from our house to our new garden, so we created a concrete barrier on the side of the house facing the garden, and our pathway begins where the concrete will end.

Next, think about what kind of stones you’d like to use for your pathway. Are you looking for something more natural-looking, or do you prefer uniform paving stones? For our stone pathway, we choose more natural-looking stones to match the stonework we plan to install on the house, giving everything a more cohesive look.

Now you’ll need to decide whether you’d like to have a straight stone pathway or a gently curved pathway, which look fits your style and preferences? We chose a gentle curve for our pathway because we felt it matched the more natural feel of the stone and created a more visually appealing path for the space.

You’ll also need to decide what kind of material you’re going to put between the stones. Pea gravel, sand, sea shells, dirt, grass, and other short plants are all great options. We knew we wanted to keep the softer appearance and feel of grass on our stone pathway, so we decided to sow grass seeds between the stones of our path.

How do you layout a stone walkway?

First of all, you’ll need to remove any grass or plants where your stone pathway will be, as well as a few inches of soil. This will allow your stones to be flush with the ground around the pathway, and prevent people from tripping on loose or raised stones. We rented a small excavator to dig out our pathway because it was much quicker and easier than digging the path by hand.

After the grass is cleared away, you can start placing your stones! You may wonder, how far apart should my pathway stones be? Of course this depends on which type of stones you’ll choose for your pathway, but for larger stones like ours, a good rule of thumb is that the centers of each stone should be about 20-24 inches apart, as this is the average length of most people’s strides. Placing them this distance apart makes the walk from our garden to the house more comfortable than if they were further apart.

We also used stones of varying sizes, some slightly larger or smaller, so we tried to place our stones in a visually appealing way, not crowding small or large stones together to make the path look uneven.

After our stone pathway layout was finished, we simply filled the blank areas with soil, raked the excess across all the stones to make sure the spaces were filled, and then brushed off the extra soil! We waited a few days for the soil to settle and pack down before sweeping it again and sowing grass seeds in between our stones.

 

What materials do I need for my stone pathway?

In order to create the inexpensive stone pathway of your dreams, you’ll for certain need a few materials, and others are optional.

Your MUST-have pathway materials:

• Natural stones or paving stones

• Shovels, trowels, or an excavator

• Material (gravel, sand, dirt) to fill in the gaps between stones

Optional pathway materials:

• Landscape fabric (to prevent weeds between stones)

• Barriers (for pathways that need to be more contained) such as brick, metal, or wood

• Low-growing plants to make the edges of your path look more visually appealing

Want to see how we designed and built our inexpensive stone pathway? Watch our YouTube video below! Don’t forget to subscribe!

Here is the weed eater I use for trimming back the pathway! It works amazing and the battery life lasts for all of my outdoor projects.

My favorite work boots that I wear daily. Comfortable & waterproof!

We absolutely love how our stone pathway came out and we hope you do, too! Let us know your thoughts in the comments, friends!

Hugs,

Christina & Trevor