Step by Step

This past weekend I had the opportunity to watch my neighbors working on a great garden project. Cynthia is one of those fearless do-it-yourself ladies, ready to tackle anything. Well, this time she's decided to tackle quite a big project, a concrete walkway.

I've seen these molds for sale in the past and always thought about buying one. Thinking and doing though are different things. With Cynthia, thinking is doing and she jumped right in to the concrete making business.

As I watched her and her husband Rich mix the cement and fill the mold I thought it looked easy. To be truthful though there's still quite a bit of work involved. The site they were placing this walkway on had to be level, cleared and had landscape fabric spread on it. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of that stage.

While I was there, they were making additional stones to use to widen a part of the walkway. Cynthia explained that it only took minutes for the cement to set, at that time you can wiggle the mold and pull it free.

24 hours later the cement is hard enough that you can walk on it without making a mark.

Here you can see how you simply fit the mold into the previous piece and continue to add cement. One 50 lb. bag of cement basically fills one mold.

Now this is the photo you've been waiting for, here's what I could see when peeking over the garden gate. How cool is this walkway! I can't wait to see the finished project.

This part of the walkway was set into place. The pieces photographed above were going to be set individually along the edges to flesh out the whole design.

All told, Cynthia said they used about 50 bags of cement. The cost for them was about $150 plus the cost of the mold. What a fantastic do-it-yourself project!

Hardscape Time

(Ick, our front walk and stoop were an insurance agents nightmare. We no longer felt safe standing on that front stoop. Forget about any welcoming feeling.)

Hardscape is such an important part of any landscape package but easily the most expensive. When we bought our house (almost 11 years ago), we knew we'd need quite a bit of stone work down the road.

The front stoop was so small that you had to step back and down one step just to get the door open. That was pretty ridiculous considering our front lawn is almost 3/4's of an acre. The walkway from the driveway to the stoop was only set in sand and had been undermined by chipmunks more times that I can count.

A few years ago we began to look into estimates on having masonry work done here. The first time I asked for everything at once, the front walk and stoop, the driveway, the back patio and the pool patio. OUCH! That first estimate was the size of a down payment on a house.

(First view of the new stoop and floating platform)

Since then we've had one or two estimates a year, just for the work in front of the house. Not one of the people who came here excited us. Basically they offered a plan very similar to what was here. I'm the first to admit that I know nothing about this kind of design work but I knew that we needed some kind of inspiration. Along came Libardi Island Landscaping Corp. and suddenly we knew we were in the right hands.

(Preparing the foundation for the new walkway)

Pete and Tony Libardi were doing work on the house across the street from us and we did our usual "come give us an estimate" dance. Right from the start we knew things were different. They had done such a classy job on the house across the street. Pete came up with some ideas that I would have never conceived on my own. Not only would the stoop be larger but there would be a "floating platform" at the base of the stoop and then the walkway would be another level.

(Work on the walk way and patio in front of the breezeway begin today)

Today we are only half way through the job and Don and I are just ecstatic. These guys are awesome! Not only is their work amazing and their prices highly competitive, they continue to come up with new ideas.

Just in case you live on Long Island and are looking for a recommendation for some great masons, I took the above photo. We highly recommend Libardi Island Landscaping Corp. Although the job they did here was strictly masonry, they also did a totally awesome landscape package on the house across the street from us.

I've got to go back out and watch the magic they are creating,
Melanie