We were tasked with reforming the main entrance to an elegant townhouse. The front steps and connecting walkway were disintegrating from weather erosion of the original poor construction. After removing the overgrown and rogue plantings of previous decades we dry stacked the stone walls to contain and elevate the new plantings. The terrain was steeply pitched up to the front yard and contained a mature and healthy tree to be saved.
The front steps were dimensioned in reinforced concrete to receive their skin of natural stone.
The walkway to the front door had originally been stone set in a thin bed of cement that also filled the spaces between the stones. Over the years water had penetrated the joints and broke whatever bond had been between the stone and cement so that the stone was free floating on a bed of crushed cement (much as the front steps had been.)
The side paths are stepping stones on pea gravel. See more photos here.