How to Build a Walkway Path

Preparing

• 1

  Fashion a spacer from one of more pieces of scrap lumber, either by sawing a long piece down to the width of the walkway or by nailing two shorter pieces together. If you nail two shorter pieces together, place them so their ends overlap and the bottoms are flush and level, and then drive four nails through the overlapping wood in a rectangular pattern.

• 2

  Mark out the area for the path by taking a rubber mallet and pounding in a pair of stakes at the beginning of the path, and another pair at the end of the path, using the spacer to determine how far apart the stakes should be. The stakes must be on the outside ends of the spacer.

• 3

  Put in place more pairs of stakes at intervals down the length of the path, repeating the procedure from Step 2. Use as many pairs of stakes as you think you need to guide your excavation of the walkway's bed.

• 4

  Shovel out dirt from the marked area between the stakes down to a depth of eight inches. When you are finished, place the spacer across the bottom of the bed to check it for both a smooth, even width and a flat bottom. Any parts of the walkway bed that are too wide or too deep must be filled in with dirt and compacted with an earth tamper for firmness.

Building the Walkway

• 5

  Fill in the walkway bed with three inches of gravel. Use the spacer to ensure the gravel bed is even, and rake out areas that are not even with an iron rake. Compact the gravel with the earth tamper. Repeat the process until the bed is filled with six inches of compacted gravel.

• 6

  Cover the gravel with an inch-thick layer of sand. Use the spacer again to ensure the layer of sand is even across the walkway bed.

• 7

  Place your pavers (flagstone, fieldstone or bricks) atop the sand layer. To create the smaller pavers, cut flagstone and fieldstone with a hammer and cold chisel, and bricks with a wet saw with a diamond blade.

• 8

  Dump more sand on top of the pavers. Sweep the sand into the joints between the stones/bricks with a push broom.

• 9

  Spray the surface of the walkway with water, washing sand into the joints and compacting it. Continue laying sand, sweeping it into the joints and wetting the walkway until the joints are filled with compacted sand.