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Life with Holly

Blog about Interiors, Motherhood and More

House & Garden, Tutorials

How We Built a Reclaimed Brick Garden Path – A Tutorial

16 May 2018 Leave a Comment

Check out our reclaimed brick pathway!
Our garden has the worst path ever. It’s some sort of pebble dash concrete monstrosity that is neither safe nor attractive. It gets so slippery in winter as the pebbles are now polished with years of use, so one sniff of cold weather and the path is like an ice rink, but the surface is also (bizarrely I know) so rough it’ll take a layer of skin off if you fall on it. Not good for a garden where there are kids running around, and not good for when I have clients coming to collect cakes – I don’t want to have spent all week working on a cake for them to slip and throw it all over my garden because of my dodgy path! But now we have a beautiful reclaimed brick pathway. 

 
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
The back of our house is accessed by a single track lane, and on the end of this lane there’s a building site where a Victorian mansion has been demolished and replaced with two big “executive-style” houses. The houses are almost finished however the builders had just started pulling down the original Victorian brick garden wall to put up a fence. Mr R asked the builder if we could have the bricks, and he said yes! The only problem was they were all over the building site, and we had to collect them from there. About a billion trips in Pierre later, we had a huge stack of reclaimed bricks! FOR FREE! #winning
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
 
The next step was to smash up our existing path. It had started crumbling away anyways as it was rubbish, and I set to work with a sledge hammer to break up the rest. Our garden unfortunately has no access for diggers and such, so it’s all got to be done by hand. This is probably the reason we haven’t touched the huge rockery and built a retaining wall instead yet! The path was broken up in around an hour as it was so crumbly, and I definitely earned my takeaway calories that day. We bagged up the rubble ready to take to the tip.
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
 
The next step (the next day, as we were only working in afternoons due to having to work/do housework/sort Hols out etc) was to level the site. Our garden extends a bit further than the one next door, so I wanted to make sure that next door’s step came down onto a level surface. We dug out a brick’s height down to make sure we could fit the bricks in, but somehow we had dug out too much so we had to fill it back in. There was a lot of that kind of nonsense going on in this project as we had absolutely no idea what we were doing! We used a garden rake in the end to get the levels right as the path slopes and curves – most first time path layers would probably start with a straight flat one but not us!
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
Once we were level ish, we used builder’s sharp sand to create a bed for the bricks to sit in. This held them in place and meant we could create a better level for them. As the bricks are reclaimed, they’re not even and not all of them have straight edges so we had to fill bits in, take bits out – it was a process of tweaking as we went along.
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
I got such bad sunburn doing this! My top rode up exposing the bottom of my back which I didn’t put sun cream on, and because I spent a good while laying bricks in this position I burnt a fabulous stripe on my back. Not a good look!
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
After browsing on Pinterest we got some ideas for our path, and decided on a kind of herringbone/zig-zag design as it looked relatively easy to do. Turns out I can’t keep to a pattern as when laying the bricks and Mr R was doing the tip run I messed up a few times, but luckily he CAN keep to the pattern and spotted my mistakes before it was too late!
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
Once we had started putting the bricks in, we put in a rope edge tile. These are original to the terrace, as they came from the neighbour’s garden (they didn’t want them any more and really kindly gave them to us for use in our path! We gave them wine in return). The tiles gave us a beautiful neat edge and matched the ones we have to the other paths further up the garden.
We had to cut some of the bricks to fit in smaller gaps, and for this Mr R used an angle grinder. It made light work of the bricks although the dust all over my garden was awful.
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
After we had laid the bricks in place, we tweaked the position of the rope edge tiles before we used Postcrete to fix them in place. This stuff dries in no time at all, which is great when you’re impatient like me and want to get a project over ASAP. If a project takes longer than half an hour I generally hate it. It was around £5 for a big 20kg bag which was more than enough for our 5.5m stretch of tiles. We only used cement for the edge tiles to hold them in place.
 
 
The actual bricks were grouted using kiln dried sand, which we just brushed into the gaps between them. We had to bob out to buy this and ACCIDENTALLY stopped off at a beer garden to enjoy a wine and some sunshine. Totally slacking off!!
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
This whole project has made such a difference to our garden and has only really cost us 4 bags of sharp sand and 6 bags of kiln dried sand (oh, and a sledgehammer which I have now called Magnus). We were so lucky to have access to all the free bricks and the edging tiles and to be able to borrow an angle grinder.
 
And now I’ve got a bit of extra planting space!
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
 
We’ve got another two paths to do, but these are straight and don’t slope AS much, so they should be easier. They’re also much shorter than the section we’ve just done thankfully, as using the sledgehammer has proven I’m not as strong as I think I am! I could barely move the day after breaking up the path haha!
 
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
Tutorial - How to Create a Reclaimed Brick Pathway by Life with Holly
It’s such an easy project though, and the difference is amazing. Our path is now safer and more sturdy, and you’re less likely to lose a layer of skin if you fall over on it. Not that I’m planning to do that though…
 
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions at all just ask away x
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About Me

Hi! I'm Jo, and welcome to my blog about my life with my daughter Holly. Here you'll find posts on interiors and DIY, our home and garden, our travel and other day to day goings on. Thanks for stopping by!

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Instagram post 2199327397807773047_6413025398 Hooray for lazy Sundays! We've only just got up (barring the first attempt by both the cat and small child to make us get up at 6am). Hooray!! Hope you've got a good day planned? We've no plans as yet - another hooray!

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Instagram post 2198566080914258873_6413025398 Not very festive over this side of the room yet! We had a slightly awkward situation yesterday. I'd ordered some stickers for Hols for Christmas as she bloody loves stickers and she bloody loves Pusheen. For some unfathomable reason, the stickers have arrived addressed to her, so obviously she's opened them already! Why would I do that?! Good job she likes them!

Kettle kindly gifted by @swanbranduk 
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Instagram post 2197793811744962419_6413025398 Well there's a few knobs in this picture which need an update! The doorknobs are cheap chrome ones which need changing to beehive, and I'm thinking of changing the bed knobs to gold/brass coloured.

The "Seasonal Tree" had a bit of a tour around the house, as you can see! I've still got to trim up the fireplace in here properly but haven't had time this week. Maybe today...! Happy Friday!

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Instagram post 2197070761575783680_6413025398 When you try to get up early to have five minutes peace, but the whole family (including the cat) get up with you 😫

Caption doesn't relate to the pic, other than I'm sat at the table now wishing I was still asleep! Happy Thursday x

Rug is from @ikeauk

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Instagram post 2196347350234833083_6413025398 Don't look too closely, my star (aka a light shade from Ikea) has a gusset issue that needs sorting! I've quite liked having this bench in the hall and didn't crack my shins on it once! I've put it back in the cellar now though, as it was becoming *yet another* dumping ground for small child tat. Like every other surface in our house.

Happy Wednesday!

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Instagram post 2195622530832554906_6413025398 You know you're a parent when you are fishing around in your toilet, armed with a stick and a carrier bag, to remove the loo roll tube your child and her friend had accidentally dropped down there. Well, I say *I* was fishing around - obvs I asked Mr R. There's no way I'm putting my hand down the loo! 😂

Happy Tuesday!

Towels kindly gifted by @hamptonandastley. 
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Instagram post 2194901301184015279_6413025398 Yesterday I learned that I am too old for bouncy castles. I've given myself a bad back from bouncing with the children 🤦‍♀️ It's OK though, because I've got a week off work! Woohoo! 🎉🎉 Hopefully I'll get time to recreate some pics like this from last year - back when we had flooring (albeit manky carpet) in the dining room. Once I've paid my huge tax bill in January 😫😫 I'll be saving for Project Parquet, and Project Hallway Panelling, and aaaaaalllllll the other things that need doing... Have a happy Monday!

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Instagram post 2194195504518928890_6413025398 Yesterday's trip to the Christmas Market ended up in the pub, as usually happens. After a few drinks I found myself booking tickets to the local indoor inflatable theme park (basically a sports hall covered in bouncy castles). So that's today's activity, being slightly hungover on bouncy castles. Just hope my pelvic floor is up to it... 😳

Have a happy Sunday!

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Instagram post 2193470982887085342_6413025398 No glitter in here! Well, there probably is, as the bloody stuff gets everywhere. Holly did a craft thing the other day where you make a snowglobe (🙄🙄) with these tiny white balls, then blow into it and it makes the snow move. She didn't fasten the top up properly, so when she blew into it the balls went everywhere and I'm still finding them in my kitchen. It also came with glittery snowflake stickers, which have left glitter all over my dining table 😠

Happy Saturdays, anyways. I've got a jolly jaunt to Bolton Abbey for a wedding delivery then I think we're off to the village Christmas Market to buy some Christmas tat we don't really need. Happy days.

Planter previously gifted by @riverisland 
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Instagram post 2192719693853050478_6413025398 I still have a Rightmove alert set up on my phone for our village, so I can see what houses are coming up for sale - even though I'm never ever moving again. Moving into this house was stressful! One of the houses that has come on the market is one that we viewed when we bought this place, and is what Mr R and I called "The Sex House" due to an unfortunate amount of "erotic" statues all over the house and a dart board on the back of one of the doors featuring a lady with a rather ample bosom who had forgotten to put a jumper on. It was certainly eye opening, viewing the house with a small child 😳😳 Luckily whoever bought it then has de-sexed the house and it's now a lovely little cottage for someone!! Worst house you ever viewed? Can you beat the Sex House?

Unrelated picture, obvs! Happy Friday! X
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