Wolff Walkway

A few weeks ago, the genesis of the Wolff walkway, I proposed an approximately 10’x5’ walk from the garage to the upper house stairs. The house is circular and there are two staircases to access it—one very step stair goes to the second floor, and another goes to the first floor, and is also a few feet off the ground. The steeper, second floor stair is the one I’m laying a path from. The step at the garage is around 8” to the ground, and a there is a lot of water pooling around the step, next to the driveway.

My job is to fill in the area with pathstones, and get it to drain. A week after proposing the walkway, for a reasonable rate, and a counter offer by the client, which I accepted, and changed the specs of the walkway to make it narrower and simpler, I took a stab laying out the walkway.

This walkway, while I liked the mosaic, never made it to the clients house. My dad, who owns the stone and liked this layout, also threatened to stack this walkway back onto the pallet if I didn’t move it off the rear drive. So into our new garden it went. I have yet to tune it up, but it was a good way to spend our Easter. An additional silver lining to this walkway version is getting used to the process of composing a finish-quality walkway. It’s been months since I last started and finished my own flatwork, and the client is a family fiend, and so they deserve the best quality possible.

This week, on another job, my stonework confidence took a hit, but I learned a valuable skill to help me get this done. While laying bricks, the foreman showed me with a string that my line was out of plumb. I had been using my eye to ascertain the best line, and was very pleased with the result. Alas, the string does more to revel what the eye can not detect. The middle of my line was off a quarter inch. While I was frustrated at the time for being corrected for something so menial, I learned a valuable lesson which came in to play today.

Today, I got a late start, but made up for it with energy and opportunism. Seizing the opportunity to recycle materials, I grabbed old granite from a past job, and reused a pile of stone dust, sand, gravel and clay as my walkway base. When I got to the job, I emptied the contents onto the plywood and path area, realized I would need almost double that amount, and went home to get some more materials. Around 12 pm, having unloaded a second load, I began laying my walkway. Starting at the garage door, I set my biggest landing stone 5” below the threshold. Using two more stones to complete the landing, the flat hoe handle ensured me the landing was generally at the right height. The rest of the walkway went in stone by stone until the homeowner, who was sitting and chatting with me, asked me to connect the walkway to the driveway and do it soon. When I did so, I realized two things; my stones were too high, and the walkway was blocking water from the driveway from passing down the hill. To fix the problem of the high walkway, I used a keystone, and to fix the water drainage, I made a swale. But to grade them both correctly to a very minute degree—I used a piece of rope tied to a rock, which is very nearly a piece of string. This swale, now bottoming at the right spot, and the keystone reset at the right height, gave me reprieve. I took lunch knowing that with some 2” stone for the swale, 3/4” round stone for the joints, and perhaps a few more flat stones, I’d be able to finish this job off right.

Tomorrow, if it doesn’t snow, I will return to this job to do some fine tuning. I need to set the stones at the stair not visible in the above pictures. The dirt areas would benefit from some simple perennials — and the swale could use some grass seed. I am excited to finish a job which already has incorporated so much learning. If I get started on time or early, maybe I’ll have time to finish the mosaic in the garden using a string tied to a stake.