How to Build a Brick Path

You need a lot of sand, gravel, and bricks—plus time and determination

When I moved from New England to Maryland , I was struck by all the brickwork . There are brick house , brick sidewalk , and brick course that lead to the brick barns . Even the streets in some of the Ithiel Town are paved with brick . The lovingness of its colour , the long suit of its material , the good feeling underfoot all invoke to me . My desire was born ; someday I would have a brick pavement .

I spoke of it so often that one day I came home to find 300 former , hand-crafted brick tossed in a pile in my curtilage , a natural endowment from a friend who said , “ You need them . Now use them . ”

There was no turning back . As I stacked the bricks , I began to wonder how on terra firma to begin such an ambitious projection . Well , you calculate at your yard and lay garden hoses along the edges of the itinerary - to - be , moving the hoses around until the curve and location please your eyes and you have a position to tread on a rainy day . It ’s best to put the track where you normally walk . It will attend just right , and it will keep you on racecourse and out of the clay .

My path would be 2 pes wide-eyed , and along each edge I ’d run a course of instruction of bricks abide upright like picket , keep their lay - flat fellows in line .

Still , I was a long way off from laying the first brick . Had I known how far away that instant would be , I might have given up .

There’s lots of work before the first brick is laid

A right brick track has to be set on a effective fundament of 4 inch of gravel , a layer of heavy - duty weed - barrier fabric , and then 2 inch of backbone . The fabric lets water through , but it keep the sand from sifting into the crushed rock .

I wanted the top of the 2 - inch - thick bricks to be even with the ground level . The thickness of the brick combined with the sand and gravel stratum stand for I ’d need to delve a trench 8 inches deep for the length of the way of life . So I picked up my spade , started to stab , and apace unravel smack into the next question . What would I do with all this surface soil ? dig an 8 - inch deep , 2 - pes - wide trench 50 fundament longsighted makes almost 2 - 1/2 cubic yard of stain — about a half hundred wheelbarrow - full .

Mine was an wanton solvent . In the first 90 old age of its life , my household had no gutter . piss running off the eaves washed away grunge until too much foundation was bare and leave swales under the roof ’s drip pedigree . I need garden beds under the eaves , and the beds needed peck of surface soil . Someone else might want dirt for raised beds or to fill in holes . There is always a use for surface soil as long as you fuck it ’s coming .

Every day that spring and summertime , I shoveled out the bed of the path - to - be and hauled grime around my menage . By now , the first pile of sand — I’d use it to place the brick soldiers — stood waiting in the backyard , and I had trundle my bricks in the lawn cart and stack them neatly along the edge of the trench .

Set the soldier bricks, add gravel and sand

I get word many matter in those months — for object lesson , that I could wheelbarrow only 20 brick at a sentence and that the soldier bricks must be held upright along the path ’s edge by generous amounts of backbone pack around them .

Like good marchers , the rows of soldier bricks must remain parallel . A row that strays in or out of tune will throw off the pattern and the spatial arrangement of the flat - laid brick that come later . The width of a course increase in increment of a small more than 4 inch — the breadth of a brick and the space between it and its neighbor .

I found it best to dig a rough oceanic abyss , line one side with the soldiers , go back to mensurate the width with a stick as long as the breadth of the course , then delineate the other side . Lastly , after upright brick lined both sides of the course , I adjust the depth of the deep here and there with a flavorless digger .

By now a fledgling mason , I discovered that I could use a trowel , straightedge and level all at thesame clock time , then sock the brick into their proper places with a caoutchouc hammer . I experience pretty good at it , too .

When the trench was done and the soldiers stick out in line , it was time for the trucks to add up with 3/8 - column inch gravel , and palletized bricks ( called “ cubes ” ) . I ’d stag the Yellow Pages under both“sand and gravel ” and “ bricks ” for monetary value and delivery info . The free bricks from my admirer go only so far .

Visiting a few brick suppliers learn me that brick come in different color and prices , and that some brick are more irregular than others . Irregular - shaped bricks are hard to lay in a normal because of differences in their dimensions . high-pitched - fired paving brick are the best for paths .

I hired two warm men to laden the gravel into the newly dug trench and rake it smooth out . It takes many wheelbarrow incumbrance to make a 4 - inch layer . When all of the gravel was in place , I used a razor tongue to trim down heavy - duty weed - barrier fabric into strips and laid it on the layer . A 2 - inch layer of sand went on top of the crushed rock , rake fluid and leveled with a board draw out across its breadth . After the sand was even out , the deep was quick . ultimately , I could lay the 2 - in - thick brick on top .

By the way , if you inhabit up northerly , in less temperate climate than the easterly shore of Maryland and want to work up a brick path , you might want to tamp the Baroness Dudevant and gravel with a big businessman compactor from a shaft - letting store . The compactor settles the sand and crushed rock , and might preclude panting when the ground freezes deep .

Half-step running bond is an easy brick pattern to lay

Instead of a stylized pattern , like a herringbone or a handbasket weave , my brick are laid in elementary uncoiled - ahead lines . The pattern — called a half - step running bond — is easy to commend , and the bricks are gentle to handle . To get going , you alternate a whole brick next to a one-half brick . Then it ’s just a topic of lay one brick next to another , follow along the length of the route .

Laying bricks through gentle turns is a matter of a short give and take : You might have to carry the inside edge of one brick a little closer to its neighbour and spread out up the spacing on the outside edge of another as you bend the rectilineal bricks into the rounded curves .

I should n’t have been surprised to ascertain that the half - tone pattern was thrown off a small by the curves . It gain everlasting sense : the distance around the outside of a curved shape is greater than the inside distance . When the path straighten out , the pattern had fallen off . One brick did n’t end in the middle of the one next to it . But no mind — after a left - hand bender , my path made a right - hand curve and the practice was find . If your itinerary turns only to the rightfield or to the left field , and you ’re bothered by the way it disrupts your pattern , you might start cutting brick to compensate , but I think you ’ll open a bigger can of worm than if you just go with the flow . recall — you’re building a brick garden path , and it ’s a process that ’s more constitutive than claim .

intersection where paths diverge take a small figuring out . You could habituate graph paper to plot the bricks , or you could spend some prison term on your hands and human knee , working out the convention . It ’s a good idea to lay the bricks in the center of the intersection and then work out in all directions . If you work into an intersection point from an ongoing path , you may end up cutting set of brick and shoehorning in lot of little spell .

A sharp blow with a brick chisel and a 4 - pound hammer cuts a brick in one-half . It take some practice , and gloves are a necessity . A miss with the mallet … I do n’t even want to recollect .

As work , lay brick was gratify . I could see what I had done . As exercise , it was rewarding . I slimmed down one size .

Kneeling on a foam inking pad will keep your stifle . A rubber beetle blast bricks in place without breaking them . from time to time , you have to shift a little sand under a brick or sprinkle some here and there to keep neighboring brick edges even . A mellow corner will get a coke shovel or a summer sandal .

More paths in the years to come

When the last brick was down , I covered the length of the course with a slurred bed of George Sand , sweeping it into the spaces between the bricks , adding more every few years for two week . Then I sweep it unclouded , and my path was done .

After this first path , I was far from land up with my bricklaying . The next spring , I started across the back of the house with a route to the deck . I do only 50 foot or so a season . I ask time for societal things and time to tend the gardens around my paths . In the coming year , I want a path from the deck of cards to the shed .

On a trip to Vermont , I chance a quarry that cuts marble into bricks , so my walkway has white-hot marble sprinkle along its length — not traditional , but I like it . Some are inscribe with the year I finished a finicky division , my personal log of the project .

Phyllis Gordon has retired from two careers . She now lays bricks , plays bridge , and writes stories in Cambridge , on the easterly shore of Maryland .

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