Whether you’re looking to add curb appeal to the front of your home or you’re interested in elevating the look of your backyard, a walkway made of colors of travertine pavers is the ideal choice. Walkways serve a variety of purposes, from directing traffic, to complementing the exterior of your home, to making bare areas of your yard more interesting.
The many colors and finishes of natural stone pavers make it easy to choose pieces that look good together and fit in with their surroundings, so you don’t have to worry about the walkway looking out of place in your landscape.
But before you embark on a DIY travertine installation project, there are a few tips you should keep in mind to make the work a bit easier.
Decide how permanent you want your walkway to be
While pavers are durable and their beauty is long lasting, you don’t have to fully commit to a single walkway design if you don’t want to. If you’re not sure whether you’ll ever want to change the direction or design of your walkway, it might be a good idea to make the fixture less permanent.
Houzz.com noted that permanent designs should be placed into a bed of concrete for stability. But if you think you might want to switch the pattern or location of your travertine walkway, you can put your pavers on top of a bed of sand to allow for movement.
If you’re using a sand base, it’s important to compact the ground underneath the pavers first, then place the sand on top. The source recommended a sand base of at least 2 inches.
Choose the type of filler you want in between the stones
The Reading Addiction blog pointed out that there are several options when it comes to materials for filling in the spaces in between the pavers of your walkway. Crushed seashells, sand, river rocks, plants or grass are all valid choices. Make your decision based on what you think would look best with the rest of your yard and go from there.
Carefully consider the spacing in between pavers
When you’re setting up your walkway, you need to keep in mind that how far apart each paver is matters a lot to those who will be walking on it. No one is going to want to alter his or her stride to keep up with your placement of travertine pavers, so you’ll need to figure out the ideal distance in between each piece. This varies depending on the type of material you settled on to go in between the pavers.
Joseph Huettl, founder of Huettl Landscape, told Houzz that your best bet is to use 1.5-inch to 3-inch gaps in between pavers for gravel, 2- to 4-inch gaps for fine ground covers (like sand) and 3- to 6-inch gaps if you plan to grow lawn in between the pavers.
Having a measuring tape on hand while you plan this project will ensure that your family and friends won’t have any trouble navigating your new walkway.
