Building a brick path

Back in 2004 when we were here seeing our house for the first time, the previous owner mentioned how nice it would look to have a brick patio between those four trees at the bottom of the steps out front. I think it was something she'd planned to have installed at some point if they'd stayed here. I agreed, and ever since then it's something I've often visualized but never got around to working on. Well, one night last year a very old house just down the road burned to the ground. Thankfully, it was empty at the time! There was nothing left but ashes and a pile of old bricks from the collapsed fireplace and chimney. I asked the owner if I could have some of the bricks and he said "take them all!" So Ken and Josh and I made numerous trips to save as many as we could before the bulldozer came in and leveled the place for a new house to be built. These are pre - civil war, hand made bricks. They're rather soft so I don't know how long they will hold up out in the elements but I've decided to use some of them in this walkway. I'm still in the process of sweeping sand into the cracks here.

I had to build a couple of extra steps down to the path. These are just wooden boxes filled with rock and gravel. I could have made wooden steps like the others but that particular spot gets very icy in the winter. We had a little concrete paving stone there and Ken went flying one morning in December when he went out to work and didn't notice it was covered in ice! The rock filled steps offer much better footing as you let go of the hand-rail and step off that bottom stair.

I built in a couple of planters on each side of the bottom step and plan to put herbs in them. In fact I'd like the whole thing to be lined with fragrant herbs! There's also going to be a gate and fence. I'll take more pics as it develops. So far though I very happy with how it's turning out!