Curved paver seating wall and walkway sweeping up to a front entrance with planters

Projects — Walkways, Steps & Walls

Walkways, steps and the walls that hold a grade.

The first thing guests see, and the last place you want ice. Even risers, generous treads, and walls with drainage stone behind the face — built to hold their line for good.

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Walkway Projects

Walks, entrances, steps and walls

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Long side-yard paver walkway and patio bordered by river rock beside a board fence — Side-Yard Walk & River Rock

Side walkway leading past a stone-faced raised landing with a black glass railing — Raised Landing & Glass Railing

Wide front walkway with a low charcoal-capped planter wall running out to the street — Front Walk & Planter Wall

Large-format paver landing and step at a recessed brick front entrance with double doors — Front Entrance Landing

Raised front entrance faced in stacked stone with a glass railing and paver steps — Raised Entrance & Stone Face

Raised paver front porch and entrance steps faced with a stacked-stone wall — Porch Landing & Steps

Straight slab walkway edged in white decorative stone running along a new build at sunset — Walk & White Stone Border

Video

Side-Yard Walk Walkthrough

Wide paver front steps with charcoal treads and beige inlays at a stone-faced estate home — Estate Front Steps

Beige paver landing and steps with charcoal caps and borders wrapping a front porch — Entrance Landing & Steps

Grey slab front walk and block steps with a charcoal border at the front door — Front Walk & Steps

Light front walk with a dark double-band inlay pattern leading to a covered porch — Inlay Front Walk

Straight grey slab walk flanked by white decorative stone along the front of a modern home — Walk Through White Stone

Grey slab walk with a charcoal border crossing new sod to townhouse entrance steps — Townhouse Front Walk

Video

Front Walk Walkthrough

Grey front walk with dark banding running along the asphalt driveway to porch steps — Banded Walk At The Drive

Tan and grey blend walkway with a charcoal border between the garden bed and asphalt driveway — Blend Walk To The Door

Narrow grey paver walkway running between two houses toward the street — Side-Yard Passage

Wet dark paver walkway between two homes, freshly compacted with sand still on the surface — Between-Homes Walk

Bordered paver walk running past a railed basement stairwell to the backyard gate — Walk Past The Basement Stair

Beige and grey slab walkway with a charcoal border wrapping the back corner of the house — Back Walk & Border

Slab walkway through river rock leading from deck steps to a garden shed door — Shed Walk & River Rock

L-shaped white slab walk and pad with a charcoal border at the front of the house at dusk — Front Walk At Dusk

Why It Is Worth Doing

Why the walk and the steps are worth doing properly

A front walk is the smallest part of most quotes and the part everyone uses twice a day, in the dark, carrying something.

It is also where the liability sits. A settled slab, an inconsistent riser, or a walk that ponds and freezes is the thing someone actually falls on.

Risers that are all the same height. The single biggest safety factor on any set of exterior steps. Your foot expects the next tread where the last one was, especially under snow.
A walk wide enough for two people. Most builder walks are a token path. Widening it changes how the whole front of the house reads and means nobody steps into the snowbank to let someone pass.
Landings you can stand on. Somewhere to put a bag down while you find your keys, and a flat spot at the top of the steps rather than a door that opens onto a stair.
Walls that hold a grade for good. Block retaining and garden walls create usable planting beds and stop a slope from creeping onto the walkway.
It ties the front of the house together. Driveway, walk, landing and steps in one material and one grade, instead of three surfaces meeting at awkward heights.

Built For Canadian Winters

How walks, steps and walls are built for winter

Cold on its own does not damage interlock. Freeze-thaw does: water trapped in a poorly drained base expands as it freezes, lifts whatever sits above it, and drops it back somewhere slightly different. Ottawa runs that cycle dozens of times between November and April — and it only takes one winter for a bad base to show.

Steps and walls concentrate that problem. A step has water sitting on every tread, and a retaining wall has saturated soil behind it that expands when it freezes and pushes on the face.

Every tread given a slight fall. Enough for water to leave the step rather than sit on it and glaze over the first cold night.
Drainage stone behind every wall face. Clear stone and a drainage path behind the block, because saturated soil that freezes is what pushes a wall out of line. Wall units are set on compacted granular, never on soil.
6 inches of compacted base. The same Granular A in lifts used under patios, with geotextile where the subgrade is soft.
Edge restraint on both sides of the walk. A walk with unrestrained edges spreads a little every year until the joints open and the border course starts to wander.
Kept clear of the roof drip line where we can. A walk that sits under an unguttered edge collects meltwater all winter and becomes a ribbon of ice. Sometimes the fix is the walk, sometimes it is the downspout — we will tell you which.
Polymeric sand and a final compaction. Joints set and locked so the surface behaves as one field through the freeze cycles.

Front entrance looking tired?

Walks, steps and landings are a shorter job than most people expect — and nothing else you can spend the money on changes the front of the house as much. The site visit and quote are free.

Call (613) 301-5554 Get a Free Estimate See more of our work