How To Install a Pea Stone Walkway | Ask This Old House

foreign ero Mark it's so nice to meet you my pleasure how you doing great great I love the house this is my favorite style coming up this walkway was awesome it brought me right to the front door absolutely love it thank you so much really appreciate it we just moved in okay this walkway definitely Drew us to the house we're in love with it great and we're hoping to work with you to make the walkway a little bit more functional okay so something we've noticed in the past year is that we're constantly walking across the yard to reach the front door okay so we'd love to be able to extend this walkway to meet the driveway it makes perfect sense to go to the driveway you're coming back and forth this walkway the way it's set up should be pretty easy to duplicate excellent so why don't we get going Perfect all right the first thing we had to do was match the material and I think we had some pretty good luck with that so the blue stone that we're going to use is almost a perfect match of course that's been out here in the weather for a while same thing is going to happen to this so the tone will go a little bit darker but again it'll be a great match right the gravel we got super lucky on this gravel right here is a mixture of Browns Grays uh there's actually a couple Reds in there but it's a perfect match to the walkway and to the driveway so super lucky there the other material that we're going to use is the Cobblestone so you can see this Cobblestone that we have you see that shine right there yeah that indicates to me that that's been out in the weather for quite a while this stone is actually 250 years old maybe 300 years old that's amazing yeah it's awesome same as this one all that is handwork so it's done by just a guy in a chisel two or three hundred years ago it's really prevalent in Boston to reuse cobblestone stones that shine right there look at how rough this is wow so that's what Mother Nature does to a stone over that period of time wow which is super interesting and I love it but we didn't get as lucky as we wanted to we got a lot of these stones but not enough so what we did is we found this Stone probably a hundred years old but pretty old it's still pretty old and you actually have some in the walkway so once we get what we have for these stones and these stones and we mix them up just like you have in the walkway and the driveway the match will be Flawless Perfect all right so first thing we have to do is get into this walkway right so you have your main walk right here we need an entry point to our new walkway which again is going to be super easy because it's was trying to use symmetry as our friend so we're gonna just get our tape out we'll find out where we want to cut this original Cobblestone back we'll open up to the walkway and that'll give us the entry point from this way or if you're coming out of the house as you say going to the driveway to get into the car it'll be a perfect entry point right that's great and I love the idea of the Symmetry yup gotta stay with the Symmetry that way everything will look like it's been here together for all this time love it so why don't we get some tools and get going Perfect all right anytime we dig in the front yard we want to make sure we call the utility locating service we just want to make sure we don't hit any wires gas lines or water lines and we are clear to go all right see if you get something there you got some pictures yeah we want to dig down make sure we remove all the topsoil and we want to be wide enough so we have room to keep our cobblestones on both edges and then we're going to compact the soil with a motorized compactor now it's time to put in the Cobblestone and what I want to do which is a little different from your walkway right now is I want to add concrete under the Cobblestone the reason for that is because the stones are erratic shaped yeah so if I put a bit of concrete Down Under that stone I'm going to be able to level the top easier great you got it will that keep with the natural look of the whole pathway so we have a lot of frost up in New England as you know so the stones with the frost will move just a little bit just like your walkway great to hear so I'm noticing the strings yes so how did we figure out that we were straight with the original walkway I made sure the front entry steps a square with the house I checked the original walkway and I found that that was Square to the stairs so square off of the walkway that's what these neon lines are now keeping everything straight foreign [Music] we're going to put down landscape fabric that's going to help prevent weeds from growing through now we're going to put the base Stone in here I'll get you right there so you don't have to drag [Music] [Laughter] foreign we're going to hit it with the compactor and then we're going to install the blue stone [Music] [Music] one two three it looks really good [Music] don't be afraid to stay a little high on the stone because we're going to Tamp it down a bit oh okay yep [Music] all right what do you think I absolutely love it you match the materials just perfectly and it looks like it's always been all right well that's the biggest part of this job is matching the material I think we did a great job too so thank you I am going to leave you a little bit of homework though as you can see we had to peel the edges back a little bit more just to get those cobblestones in don't forget to throw some seed throw a little bit of water these these edges will fill right in and you should be good to go perfect all right thank you so much you've got it good luck and enjoy this walk thank you okay [Music] thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every Home Improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the Subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed

Channel: This Old House

Views: 155,142

Keywords: This Old House, Home Improvement, DIY, Construction, Ask This Old House, Building, walkways, Mark McCullough

Id: ni1P2YlZDR8

Length: 7min 36sec (456 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 27 2023