What is one part of your home or property that gets used every day with heavy foot traffic and is almost always overlooked? Your walkway! Walkways play such an important part of your day without us even knowing. How do you get in and out of your home? How does anyone coming to your home get to your door? The walkway, that’s how! It only makes sense that you should do upkeep and upgrades on your walkway to keep it looking fresh and new year after year.
Walkways take much wear and tear day in and day out. They are stepped on repeatedly, often rolled over with wheels, stood on, and in some places covered in salt during the cooler months. And here in Los Angeles, we have dry heat and earthquakes that can also cause damage. We seemingly forget that they need to be taken care of regularly just like another part of your home. What can you do you ask? As long as the damage is superficial then you can restore or upgrade it through resurfacing. Resurfacing will save you hundreds of dollars in replacing. To make sure the damage is only superficial you will need to consult with a professional. If the damage is determined to be more than superficial you will have to tear up and replace the whole walkway and then can upgrade to a longer-lasting material and style.
Resurfacing a walkway is a relatively easy job for a professional. This would not be a project to undertake as a DIY. First a professional would assess your current walkway, if it is in good condition then it will be resurfaced to fill in any cracks or dents. After those have been repaired you can choose an overlay to be applied. An overlay is where you can upgrade to a nice style that can reflect your love of your home. The overlay can be stamped, stained, stenciled or engraved to add color or simulate the look of brick, stone, tile, or slate.
This concrete walkway and steps were transformed with a colored and patterned overlay. Faux grout lines were created by taping off the flagstone pattern before the overlay was applied.
A polymer overlay with a hand-taped stone pattern and brick border gave this existing concrete entryway new life.
This concrete walkway was rejuvenated with a concrete overlay stamped in a seamless Italian Slate pattern and hand-painted with water-based antiquing stains.
To replicate the look of inlaid slate, this concrete sidewalk was covered with a gray-colored cement overlay to create the look of a grout base. The slate pattern was delineated with duct tape, and then an acrylic cement topping was applied and hand-painted to create a marbling effect.