Gravel pathways in the front?

[MrsWobbleTheWaitress]

We want to make our scrap heap front garden into a cottage-style garden. We currently have crappy paving slabs as a pathway to the front door. What are the implications of taking them up and replacing them with gravel? Would we want to retain the paving slabs just in front of the front door, or can the gravel go right up to the house?

(we hardly ever use our buggy right up to the house so that's not an issue)

Hi MrsWobble - the good thing about gravel is you can hear whoever is coming up the path but the disadvantage I found was it tends to 'creep' everywhere. I spreads out over the pavement, gets into shoes, gets walked into the house and destroys high heels and suede shoes.

Have you thought about paving slabs placed like stepping stones and surrounded by gravel?

Also gravel does need 'topping up' every few years

I yearned for a gravel drive for many years.

Then finally got one and we put block paving down

I would say keep as much paving near the door as possible, and if you've got wooden floors make sure people check their shoes before walking in.

Having said all that, I do think gravel looks lovely, but maybe it needs to be quite big stones rather than those annoying little bits that we had.

Have you got many cats in your area......?

Hmm...wondering if gravel won't work now

We will have our own cat, so hopefully others won't feel the need to use our gravel as a litter tray!

What else could we lay that would look nice and cottagey and not be very expensive?

(and how much sub base work are we likely to have to do if we're just taking up paving slabs and replacing with something nicer?)

I'm now thinking that I'm going to be creating too much work for ourselves, and spending too much money! Is there anyway on this planet one can prettify utility grey paving slabs? Can you buy paints or something for them?

Ok, back to gravel now. How do I retain the gravel at the beginning of the path?

I used to have gravel in 2 previous houses and loved it. We never had the problems people mention about it getting into shoes, harming high heels, or coming into the house on people's shoes, so I think it must be something to do with the size of the gravel - ours were really pretty chunky (approx 7mm wide?).

We put good quality paving bricks at the end of the driveway to retain the gravel, and had a large stone slab (there already) in front of the doorway.