Pepper Medley: Thoughts About Rocks

My readers may or may not remember that a year ago we had our flagstone sidewalk re-done. It had seen it's better days, had become a tripping hazard, and well, to be honest.... it looked REALLY bad.

Now, my husband had tried to fix it himself, and as handy a guy as my man is, a stone layer he is not.

Unless of course it only requires stacking concret stone/pavers such as these, and then he's my dream layer. He can do this work in a heartbeat and do it well.

When having any stonework done I recommend getting two or three quotes, since we found them to vary wildly in cost. The quotes we received varied by thousands of dollars.

Of course you want good work, so do your homework so you know there are no complaints by their previous customers.

Better safe than sorry.

AND, be sure to get someone who's work you have seen photos of, or they will provide you with addresses where they have done work so that you can do a drive by and see for yourself.

This is one of the two rock walls our stone contractor did on our property and he is scheduled to come do another for us, as well as columns at the entrance to our driveway.

This is a photo of the sidewalk when it was being done. As you can see, it's not just a matter of laying stone on the ground.

It is dug out and a fine grain of rock laid down, then the flagstone is put in piece by piece as the stone layer using a chisel/hammer to break some pieces into the shape needed to fill in the smaller spaces.

It's artwork!

Once the flagstone is all laid into place and leveled properly, an epoxy type substance is used to fill in between the stones to make it all one complete surface.

The previous owners had used sand only, and let moss grow between the flagstones and WHAT A MESS! I don't recommend that method. The weeds that came up between the flagstones were unmanageable and required constant hands and knees weeding. What a nightmare. I finally gave up trying and we made the decision to have it all re-done correctly.