I designed colored paths

Table of contents

Around the house, I placed about 400 m² of paving stones myself. By the way, I saved a few thousand zlotys! All our driveways and sidewalks are made of concrete cubes. It has various colors and shapes, it can be arranged in any pattern, and its durability is approx. 40 years. When designing sidewalks, you should not overdo it with the number of colors on one close surface. The choice of 2-3 colors or types will sufficiently emphasize the original design. For our yard, we purchased 80% of gray cubes and the remaining 20% of colored cubes. I chose its thickness according to the rule:

4 cm thick cubes are enough for pavements and terraces,
a 6-7 cm thick cube is good for ramps for cars up to 3.5 tons.

Some companies selling paving stones, when buying, for example, 100 m², offer free pavement design. However, it should be taken into account that such an arrangement may be mainly visual, while the economy will be in the background here. That is why I designed the arrangement of the ankle and lived it myself. For the arrangement of narrow paths, I would suggest a pattern that does not require the troublesome cutting of cubes.

Stakeout

The most important thing is to designate sidewalks and driveways. It's best to test a row of cubes. You need to measure an additional 10-15 cm on each side. This is the space necessary to embed edges or curbs.

Korytowanie

This operation consists in removing the ground layer for the future pavement.For narrow pavements, it is better to use a shovel, while on wider pavements an excavator will work. We get rid of about 20-40 cm of the soil layer. The greater the loads in a given place and the thicker the cube, the more soil should be selected. After cleaning, the bottom should be leveled.

Ground leveling

This activity is nothing more than leveling the ground. For this purpose I used blast furnace slag:

for a bottom with a coarser grain size of about 4-8 cm (there may also be chippings),

upwards smaller, up to 2 cm.

For 400 m² I used five 25-tonne dump trucks. I paid about PLN 800 for each. I performed these works in the fall.

Compaction

I treated the individual layers of the foundation with a borrowed compactor.

I left a space between the last layer of the foundation and the upper plane of the expected height (approx. 3-5 cm of ballast + cube thickness of approx. 1 cm for compaction). Then I placed the rims on the lean concrete, marking out the height and slopes.

Bedding layer

A leveling layer, i.e. ballast, is placed on the foundation. Sand is best suited for this. The layer should be 3-5 cm thick.

Placing the cube

When working, it is good to reach for cubes from at least three different pallets! This ensures even distribution of the material of different shades over the entire surface. The cubes should be placed from the already finished area. I got the most durable surface on the climbs by placing the cube perpendicular to the direction of the car. The width of the joints should be controlled all the time, as well as the slopes of the space being laid. There are also special tabs in the side walls for good connection of individual cubes. I filled the resulting gaps with sand. I whipped it all with a vibrator with a rubber pad.

RECIPE FOR THE GARDEN
WAYS OF PLACING THE CUBE

Prices for paving stones by specialized paving companies range from 100 to 150 PLN per square meter including the material.

The most common dice colors, apart from the standard gray, are: red, graphite, yellow, green, brown and orange. There are also cubes with the so-called a mixture of colors (their price is about twice as high as the basic cubes) and antiqued, i.e. imitating old prints, as well as upholstered, imitating natural stone and ecological openwork.

The manufacturers' offers are complemented by lawn edges, road curbs, concrete palisades in various shapes, decorative elements of small architecture, flower pots and drainage water courses.