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!