Concrete Pavers Guide

Large stepping stones have a number of uses in any landscape or hardscape project. The difficult part of using them is picking your design choice out of the myriad options available.

Designing Your Path

Of course, the preliminary work you must complete is figuring out where you want to install the stepping stones. There are many uses for stepping stones in any home or garden. One popular application is using them for a pathway through a garden. There are other options available for these pathways, such as concrete pavers, but large stepping stones are cheap and give a garden a certain ‘natural’ aesthetic without the expense of natural stone pavers. Another use for these stones is a walkway to your patio, through your yard, or to your use. There are also functional uses – you can use them to make a path through a flowerbed to a water spigot or electrical outlet. These stepping stones are great for preventing people from damaging landscaping or for tracking dirt and mud around the yard or inside your home.

Kinds of Large Stepping Stone

Once you’ve figured out the broad parameters for what you want to build, the first choice you have to make is figuring out what kind of large stepping stones you want to use for your project. You can buy single stepping stones, some more elaborate than others. A simple slate stepping stone, or any other natural stone, provides a great look to any space. But you can also purchase more manufactured options. Some have designs or mosaics embedded or placed in the stone. Others have lights implanted in them, allowing your walkway to be illuminated from the ground up. Large stepping stones cost depends on the type of stone selected; you can expect to pay anywhere from $10 to $40 for specialty, individual stones, and less per stone if you buy them in bulk, as you will for slate stepping stones or other varieties.

Another option is to create your own concrete stepping stones. All you need is some concrete mix and a mold. You can even mix some concrete color into them if you’d like to, depending on the design you create. This method is quite cheap and easy to customize, though you will be somewhat limited in the type of material you choose for the stones.

Designing Your Stepping Stone Pathway

The next choice you then need to make is how to lay your design. Some enjoy using small stepping stones and putting them closer together, forming a mosaic, while others like using larger stepping stones and having them mark out a general ‘pathway’ that people can step through. Ultimately, what you choose depends on your style and tastes, along with the needs of the space you are building. Where you place the stones will define how people walk through your home or garden; thus, if you want to highlight a particular area, you may want to design your walkway with this in mind. An example of this is to have a series of stepping stones leading to a larger stepping stone. This indicates to the stroller that they should stop in this area and take in the vista that surrounds them. It is cues like this that can enhance the look and feel of your outdoor space; ultimately, you are only limited by your creativity.

Installing Large Stepping Stones

When installing large stepping stones, realize that how you install them will affect their overall look. The easiest method is to simply lay them over the dirt or grass as you need, but each stone can and will settle, even up to a few inches. Thus, the path may look and feel uneven; if this doesn’t bother you, then you’ll save a lot of effort this way. If you want your pathway to be a bit more ordered and regular, you’ll have to install them by excavating the area, laying aggregate base and/or sand, and laying the stones as needed. This will incur more expense and time, but it will be worth it if you are going for  a particular look with your stones.