Sidewalks: A Responsible and Inventive Addition to Your Home

I do a lot of walking and I have been to several different states. It never fails that in every town that I go to; several houses do not have a sidewalk. While many people think that it is the cities job to put one in, it actually falls on the property owner. The city has no right to alter your property, and many of us don't want them to have that right at all. That is why the owner of the home has the responsibility of putting in a walking path for pedestrians. While you are not required to, it is just good manners and it gives back to the community. Having a safe way to walk around the neighborhood can be good for everyone. It also keeps people from walking through your lawn and wearing a dirt path in the middle of your grass. Putting in a sidewalk can be a fun and creative task that can involve the entire family as well. You can all say hello to the world every day with the things that you incorporate in your side walk. It is a rather simple thing to put in as well.

The first thing that you will need to do when installing your sidewalk is to figure out which type you want. Cobblestones look nice, but they can be a little work to maintain and they are very hard to shovel snow off of if you live in a colder state. Concrete can be a little expensive at first, but it is very low maintenance and easier to care for as time goes by. While you could use gravel or stones for a walkway, there are several people that cannot traverse this. If the elderly are out in their power chair or the handicapped in a wheel chair, you may have just made it much more difficult or even impossible for them to continue without going in the street. There is also the slippage factor and someone may get hurt. If there is a kid on a skateboard, they would have no way to get across this type of path without using the street. If you like the grass appearance of your lawn, you can also consider a grass and stone mixture. Lowe's sells this type of setup for driveways, but it would work for a sidewalk as well.

Once you have decided on the type of walkway to use, you can now start to put it in. Figure out how wide to make your path and rope off that section all the way across your lawn. You can have it right next to the street, or just off the street. If you have a nice garden, water features, or other things in your lawn that you want to show off, you can even wind the path through your yard a little. This may be a little scary these days, because that could allow stalkers or other bad people to get a little closer to your home than you would like. This idea would be better served in a small town where you know your neighbors. One other thing to keep in mind with your path is the location of trees. You want to stay a couple feet away from any trees so that they do not destroy your sidewalk with their root system. If you have ever walked down a sidewalk in a heavily tree populated area, you likely know what I am talking about.

After you have your area marked or roped off, you can start to dig. Depending on the type of walkway that you are installing, you will need to dig down a little. For concrete, you will need to dig about one and a half to two feet down, while cobblestone will only require you dig as deep as the bricks are tall. When it comes to concrete, you will need to also be aware of local weather. Changing temperatures can cause cracks to concrete. For these areas, you may want to go a little deeper to make it stronger, or possibly use some rebar. You can talk to your local hardware store people about what the perfect depth and methods are for your area. As always, you need to call the digger's hotline in your area before you dig. While you are not digging very far down, some pipes and cables can be quite shallow at the sidewalk area. Make sure you know where these pipes are and how deep they are before you accidentally dig into one.

Now that your "trench" is complete, you can start to lay your walkway. In the case of concrete, it does not have to be level on the bottom, just the top. When it comes to bricks or stones, if you are not level on the bottom, you will not be level on the top. The first thing that you will want to do is line the walls of your walkway with some plywood. Particle board (sheets of pressed sawdust) will also work for this and it is a little cheaper. This will help to ensure that your walkway is straight and gives it a little flexibility to allow for extreme temperatures. If you are pouring concrete, you will also want to put in a divider with the same wood. You can put these across your path every two to three feet. This will give you the block look that most sidewalks have and also allow for some flexing. It also prevents cracking so that you don't have to fix the sidewalk every year. One last thing that you will want to do is to put an inch or two of sand along the bottom of your trench. This will allow the water to drain correctly and help give a nice foundation for your sidewalk.

Now that you have everything in place, you can get to work on laying your sidewalk. This is where the creativity comes in. You can decorate the edges or all of it however you want. You can add some designs and even some artwork to the sides. You can have your kids draw and write along the side and they can even tell a little story. You can also put a greeting to all that walk along your path from your whole family. We have all seen the handprints or names pressed into concrete walkways, but why stop there? You can do so much more. You can use this project to express your family to everyone and let the world know that this is your home.

Once you have everything laid down, you will want make sure it is level once more. It is easier to fix wet cement or freshly laid bricks than to have to pull everything up and start over again. If you are laying cement, you will want to make sure that you have wet cement signs. While this may attract kids to write in your sidewalk, it will help keep most people out of it until it dries. If you don't want anyone putting their names or messages in your sidewalk, you will want to watch it until it is too hard to write anything in it.

That is all it takes to install a sidewalk. Now you can share a little bit of your family with everyone that is passing by. Whether you put some art into it or not, you have just given back to the neighborhood by creating a safe place for people to walk.