Stepping Stones

By: Daniel Roshard

Stepping stones are something every one can use to upgrade the houselook, it is not only practical but is also a great opportunity of everymember of the family to contribute and help, and even the one of us whoare not that creative can still try and think about a stepping stoneconcept, create and design a unique and creating set of stepping stonesfor your family house.

A stepping stone in your garden orbackyard will give an elegant look to it, can lead from one place tothe other in the garden itself, or lead from the front of the house tothe rear and garden. These stones can be almost any durable strongmaterial you choose, you will need to think about the materialcarefully and make some decisions about what kind of care andmaintenance you will need to put in, how much effort in placing thestepping stones you are willing to spend, and very basically how muchare you thinking of putting into this home improvement task.

Witha nice set of stepping stones you will definitely feel the differencein your garden, this is a work that might take about 2 of 3 weekends,and you can use it for good fun with the whole family, assigning tasksto each family member and making your family work as a team on thestepping stones project. Some research is always good, from theinternet to the hardware stores, or if you are thinking of gettingsomeone to do this for you looking over the designs and materialavailable or patterns that you would like to design.

One ideathat almost never fails is the consideration of the landscape of thegarden in which you want to place the stepping stones into, if youthink about your garden while planning your stepping stone you willsurely have a result that focuses on the whole look and relates andcommunicates with the garden itself, a lot of people get so excitedabout the stepping stones they detach them from the garden, and if thestepping stones do not match the environment they will simply look badand disturb the flow of your garden – even if these are unique andwonderful stepping stones.

The nice thing about this task is thatyou really do not need to spend a lot of money, you can experiment withmany relatively cheap materials and you can find a stepping stone kitto help you out, sometimes just going over your garage results in greatthings to make stepping stones of, pieces of tile or broken tile arevery good to use for this purpose, the same goes for china or ceramics– very easy things to find.

If you are looking for something witha special look and maybe for a unique pattern and some kind of effectyou should start looking for the material that will give you thisfeeling. Stepping stones are lovely to have, and great to plan andmake, have fun.

Daniel Roshard is an interior designer fascinatedby outdoor architecture, he is currently studying public parks andoutdoor design. Daniel is writing articles about home improvement andlandscaping issues. You can read his latest work on Stepping Stones here.