In this video, This Old House mason Mark McCullough helps a homeowner connect their driveway to their front walk, matching materials and style for a timeless look.
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Mark McCullough takes us on a house call to help a homeowner extend her front walkway to her driveway. After Mark sources some matching materials, the two work together to branch off the existing walkway, creating an additional path leading to the driveway. They lay cobblestones, spread pea gravel, and lay large bluestone pavers to complete the look.
Walkways that stretch from the front door to the sidewalk are great. But to make them truly functional and keep folks from walking across the front yard, they need to connect to the driveway as well. Mason Mark McCullough helps a homeowner take an existing walkway consisting of centuries-old cobblestones and connect it to her driveway using carefully-sourced materials. Here’s how it’s done.
Difficulty: ⅖
Cost: Roughly $30 per linear foot
Time: A weekend
Where to find it?
Mark extends a pea stone walkway to make a connection between an existing walkway and
driveway.
To get started Mark uses landscape string [https://amzn.to/3TttxT2] and stakes [https://amzn.to/3yOV1ci] to outline the desired width of the walkway. This ensures the walkway is square from the house. After digging down about 4 inches with shovels [https://amzn.to/3yRX0MY], lay down landscaping fabric [https://amzn.to/3lzFv0R]. Landscape fabric is setting a nice bed for the pea stone gravel [https://bit.ly/3TrEe8P] and is a sustainable way to keep weeds away. Once the walkway is prepped, dig a trench bed to lay the cobblestone [https://bit.ly/3FCYNt1]. The trench should be 2-3 inches wider than the intended border. (cobblestone around 9”x5”). Instead of doing a complete dry lay, Mark opts to use a small amount of mortar [https://bit.ly/3LC9Nut] to give the cobblestone some reinforcement.
Laying Cobblestone Edging and Pea Stone:
1. Place the first cobblestone into the mortar.
2. Tap it down with a rubber mallet to set it into the mortar, then add or remove mortar as needed so the top of the stone is level.
3. Add the next four cobblestones, using the string line as a level. Tap the side of the cobblestones with the rubber mallet not worrying about the gaps between each stone. (They will be filled with pea stone)
4. When the first five cobblestones are laid, lay a level across them, and adjust the stones to achieve level edging.
5. Install the rest of the cobblestones to the opposite end of the trench; check for level after placing every five cobblestones.
6. Spread out roughly 3 inches of pea stone over the landscaping fabric.
7. Mark suggests using a rake to smooth over any dips in the gravel.
8. After the gravel is poured and leveled, Mark suggests using a hand tamper to help compress the gravel down tighter.
9. Last step is to drop the bluestone into the pea stone.
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Materials:
Landscape paint [https://bit.ly/3JKX06D]
Landscape stakes [https://amzn.to/3yOV1ci]
Mason’s string [https://amzn.to/3TttxT2]
Cement mix [https://bit.ly/3LC9Nut]
Cobblestones [https://bit.ly/3FCYNt1]
Landscape fabric [https://amzn.to/3lzFv0R]
Gravel base [https://bit.ly/3LLMHSr]
Bluestone pavers [https://thd.co/3JIaMqv]
Pea gravel [https://bit.ly/3TrEe8P]
Tools:
Pick axe [https://amzn.to/3lI2oiY]
Shovels [https://amzn.to/3yRX0MY]
Wheelbarrow [https://amzn.to/3JFMayB]
Hand tamper [https://amzn.to/42Bj5Nv]
Rubber mallet [https://amzn.to/3LKCrd6]
Rake [https://amzn.to/3ZcOpPJ]
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From the makers of This Old House, America’s first and most trusted home improvement show, Ask This Old House answers the steady stream of home improvement questions asked by viewers across the United States. Covering topics from landscaping to electrical to HVAC and plumbing to painting and more. Ask This Old House features the experts from This Old House, including general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, landscape contractor Jenn Nawada, master carpenter Norm Abram, and host Kevin O’Connor. ASK This Old House helps you protect and preserve your greatest investment—your home.
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How To Install a Pea Stone Walkway | Ask This Old House
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32 Comments
That actually looks really good.
Meow
That was a lot of work
Name 10 types of walkways.
Mark,
You make it look so easy. Thanks guy's 👍
I'm more of a lentil stone walkway guy
Beautiful! Great job! 👌👍
I was skeptical … 👍👀👍but that “Diamond Pattern “ looks good with the house style
I’d fall flat on my face trying to walk on that uneven surface. That or break my ankle or both. Especially at night
Great Job,and that young Lady was a great helper.
Cute home and the added path looks nice.
The only thing I would have done differently is widen/curve out the path at the driveway. It would then better match to opposite end at the circle.
Now THAT is a real woman putting in work. So many times women in this videos stand around holding tools.
how does this sort of walkway hold up under snow shoveling in the winter?
Now you need to get Jen out there and replace the lawn with some more drought tolerant grasses.
do not use peastone if you have to shovel snow off it.
should be fun edging in the summer. pea gravel breaking windows and dinging cars.
Really great camera work in this episode
Big thanks to the off-camera crew of Mexicans who actually did all this and have never been acknowledged in any ToH episode.
She's a cutie
Amazing result! And I learned both how to layout a new pathway and I would definitely hire somebody to do all that! 🤣
I am willing to bet Rogah wouldn't care for the shape of that lawn.
i would have turned the old drive way into green space and just widened the original path so the car can just drive up to the main steps
I don't believe they dug that out in a day alone, he was out of breath in a couple strokes of the pick. Looks great though.
Any kind of gravel walk will soon collect a little dirt and explode with shallow weeds, and weeds moving in through the side cobble. which the ground cover won’t stop. That means either extremely attentive home owner, or weed killer herbicide, in other words, weed killer, washing off here and there, killing some bees. On and on.
I’ve always thought of that type of stone as “tumbled rock” and “pea stone” as 1/4 to 1/2 that size. Also usually white to very light gray not the multicolored stone here. It’s a beautiful walkway and I think the stone used here will be easier to walk on than what I’m used to.
It Looks nice
This homeowner seems much more competent and relaxed than the others tend to be. It looks great!
Looks really good.. nice walkway too
Makes me miss Roger.
Homeowner is gorgeous
FIX THE GRASS WOW FUNKY……
Looks good till the weeds come through. Why would you want a walkway with high maintenance