Curb Appeal month continues! Pathways and walkways are on the menu for this Top 6 Saturday, one of the more expensive and labour-intensive investments one can make in a home's curb appeal. I myself have been gearing up to take the plunge, as we have sagging concrete paving our front walkway, the kind that threatens to break the mail person's leg every winter when rainwater freezes into patches of liability/ice. Before we commit to the splurge however, these are the options we've been passing around the family table...
Piano Key Stone Slabs
This is the option I am most inclined to pursue. I love the graphic, clean look of embedding stone slabs in grass or groundcover (better for the environment) as it's at once classic and contemporary. A perfectly salient look for any architectural style.
The Fallback 
We laid a flagstone patio in our backyard last summer and it was some kind of an endeavor. A friend of my husband's did most of the work but had we had the time we would have been capable of doing it on our own. As such, it's a good fallback option if your budget won't accommodate the natural stone slabs (above) and the expertise of laying them (ours most likely will not.) Not to mention that flagstone is always a looker if you execute with diligence, by which I mean use real stone -- I actually prefer moss or grass veining in between, not sand -- and avoid pressed concreted made to look like flagstone.
Go Your Own Way...
Seattle Garden Ideas; ArchiExpo
...with wood or composite wood! Pictured on the left, a homeowner has actually laid weathered cedar as a boardwalk pathway, but I have seen composite slats -- a.k.a. plastic wood -- used instead, for better winter performance and durability. There's a home in my area that has a pathway much like the example pictured on the right, made of plastic wood, and it looks great. A bit odd when peeking through the snow in February, but really quaint in the summer.
The Green Path
Left image: SodoMoscow blog
I don't know why I so rarely see these permeable grass pavers used for walkways. They're mostly applied in place of impermeable asphalt driveways, to help absorb rainwater and help conserve our environment. I do appreciate that it would be hard to run a mower over these to control the grass growing through the cells, something driving on them everyday helps to control, but you could always use one of those electric trimmers? I am seriously considering this option; I think it's really pretty. If I do it, I'll report, of course.
The Dream
Dot Shop Bathrooms; JeffreyGardens blog
Yes you can do this in Canada, and yes it would be wildly expensive. The example on the left is a typical English Victorian/Edwardian era tiled walkway, common to urban town homes with a short distance from sidewalk to front door. England regularly gets snow and many of these walkways have survived (albeit with care) to this day. On the right is a dreamy example from Morocco, but there are tile companies that specialize in what is known as tessellated or encaustic cement tiles that are perfectly capable of withstanding a Canadian winter. The more important consideration is stylistic -- hard to pull off Marrakesh style in a Canadian landscape, but a girlfriend of mine had similar cement tiles installed in an outdoor vestibule in front of her modern home, in Toronto. So keep dreaming, it's not always for naught.
Making Nice with Cement
Left image: Dirty Business
Evidently it's possible, but I'd say it firmly depends on you hiring a designer+professional pourer (what's the word for a cement pourer again? The office is drawing a blank) -- not something I've ever seen look good as a DIY. As exemplified by the photo on the right, it's great in a yard that's elevated because it's more cost effective to pour graded steps or levels, than source natural stone slabs or even cultured stone slabs. Though some argue that labour can cost almost as much. I like the example on the left taken from HGTV's Dirty Business, where the cement is made coarse by having been mixing with pebbles, turning it into a terrazzo of sorts. The example also shows another advantage of cement: it can be poured in any shape you desire. Just watch out for those liability cracks!!
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