Walk This Way (by Andy)

Following the completion of our paver patio in May of last year, we had quite a few extra bricks left over. We also had about a half of a yard of road base rock left over (the recipe for the pavers is road base, sand and then pavers on top). We wanted to use the bricks and not throw them away as there were almost 300 of them (varied amounts of all three sizes) and it would be too wasteful to throw them away.

You'll notice the bricks move from their initial location (above) to a new location next to the side yard (below). I needed to move them last September for Katie's birthday party. The picture below also serves as a great 'before' picture.

We landed on a plan to use these extra pavers along the west side yard of our house. You'll remember that this side was previously extended 12 feet and had a gate installed. This walkway would act as a transition from front yard to back and would provide an attractive use of our extra bricks. So the plan was in place. Last summer, when we decided on this plan, I sat down and devised a clever pattern for a section of walkway 4 x 6 feet. So last weekend, with the prospect of putting in our grass at the end of May and the need to actually get those spare bricks out of the way, I set out to complete our walkway. On day one, I excavated the dirt about 5 inches down and hauled it all away in 2 truck loads off to the dump. Afterwards, I shoveled in the left over road base that had been sitting in the driveway for almost exactly one year.
End of day one.

At the end of day one, I decided that it was time to get out my old plan for the walkway to review the pattern I had planned out. When I eventually scraped it up, I made a shocking discovery. I had remembered my plan incorrectly and as I had originally planned a 24 square foot area, I had just excavated and prepped a 54 square foot area. Oops. After catching my breath, I sat down with my brick inventory and a fresh sheet of graph paper to see if I could devise a new plan. I found that I could actually achieve the same pattern as our patio. Day two was a flurry of activity that involved setting brick retainers in place (black plastic borders that keep the bricks in place), pouring 10 bags of sand and placing paver bricks on top of the sand. So, at the end of the day, the project was finished. I even had enough time to "sand" the bricks. This involves spreading sand on the top of the bricks to help fill the small gaps between each brick to lock them all in place.
The sand and brick progress. The white lines are pipe that is laid down to ensure a 1 inch thickness of sand.


One of the challenges of this project is that the two smaller bricks (4"x4" and 4"x8") were actually in short supply. I was short 5 small bricks and almost 20 medium bricks. Luckily, there was an abundance of large bricks measuring 8"x8". I was able to make up for the lack of smaller bricks by cutting the larger bricks in halves and quarters.
The 'after' pictures.


Over all, the outcome was great and I'm very happy with how it looks. Now all that remains is to fill the gaps around the walkway that I had to dig to make room for the brick retainers I installed. In the end, of the nearly 300 bricks that were left over from the patio project, now only 8 remain.
The remaining bricks. All that remains of a once great stack. We will be putting a small garden in the space between this walkway and the back yard (seen in the picture immediately above) and will use these bricks to put stepping stones through that garden.