Brick Walkway finished, brick paths, dry laid brick walkway

dry laid brick walkway

A typical project here at Shore Side Farmhouse is the chunked out, piecemeal, unending project. The kind of project that will go on forever because you don't really have all the supplies you need to do it right, or you don't have the time you need to finish it just so. Maybe even you want to finish it, and you are all set up to finish it, but a blizzard, hurricane or earth quake roll in and suck up the time you have blocked out to do the work...or the more mundane sort of annoyance, the bathroom springs a leak, raccoons hit the garbage cans, or construction crews demolish work you already completed,....well you get the idea.

Landscape Construction Renovation

Today completion is a source of pleasure. We are glad to say that my unending brick walkway project has been completed by Mr. He finished it out to the street and it is looking damn good. A together project? No, not that. We don't work well together at all, he wants to tell me how to do it and I want to do it my way, but in the end much does get done around here. We are both project doers and chunking workers. We work on projects in chunks and in the end it usually gets done over a period of time, be it long or short.

brick walkway before sanding

In this case I did the sidewalk a bit at a time as I gathered old bricks. They came from demolished chimneys, buried treasure troves, and piles of brick left by the previous owners. Much of the brick had to be cleaned, which actually means be chipped off with a chisel, or sorted from a dump pile into like sizes and clay bases. All of the bricks in this place are not the same size, nor made of the same materials. My favorite bricks found here have fingerprints in them. Well, anyway that is why this has been a prolonged two year project.

Applying sand to dry laid brick walkway

I finished most of it in February of this year. At that time there was a final section that needed turf removed... wicked turf, wire grass turf, rough and tough stuff that was going to take some digging and sifting to remove. I was pretty bushed, so I laid out all the bricks over the turf, after sorting them for usability. Many were so distorted they could not be used to walk on or folks would trip. So all these bricks have been laying out there in a loose configuration of a walkway. Mr went out, picked them up, raked around the grass that is now dead and leveled it as much as he could. We now have a walkway that goes to the street. Thank goodness. This is a rough and tumble place. Don't expect to get into the car unscathed when dressed up and going to an occasion that requires decent clothing. The grounds at Shore Side Farmhouse will always take a swipe at your shoes, or coat, and defeat your greatest plans. The mostly level, but always passable dry laid brick walkway is an improvement, if not entirely conventional. As usual, here are some photos. The last three photos show the process of filling sand in between the bricks to stabilize them. We laid the brick, spread some sand on top, and then broomed the sand into the crevices to keep the bricks securely in place.  I should stamp on the last photo "FINISHED AT LAST!"