The Best Budget DIY Pathways

Who amongst us can honestly say they've never stayed awake until 3am looking at pictures of beautiful, alluring path and driveways? Well actually, with the rise of Pinterest, probably quite a few of us! We browse the external home surfaces of the rich and turn green with envy, only to collapse into a pit of despair when we realise how much they forked out to install the thing. But fear not! With a little know-how and a couple of free Sunday afternoons you can build yourself one of these DIY pathways - guaranteed to make your fellow 'pinners' jealous - and all for the price of a cheap caravan holiday to Skegness. Here are some of our favourite budget DIY pathways which even you, yes you, could install with minimal cost and effort.

Logging On

Mother Nature will surely thank you for this one. By re-using leftover tree stumps in these neat little pathways not only have you done your bit for the environment, but you’ve also made your garden look a little bit like Middle Earth. Now all you need to complete the illusion are a few hobbits and orcs – best invite the in-laws then.

A Gamer’s Garden

If you’re a child of the 80s and 90s you’ll definitely recognise this design. Some crafty computer kid has carved these concrete stepping stones to look like the old Nintendo games console. If these steps don’t lead to a mushroom patch with bricks that emit coins as you punch them I’ll be very disappointed.

Positively Glowing!

Have you always wanted to achieve a glow-in-the-dark pathway without the use of expensive and messy plutonium? Well now you can thanks to these two nifty inventions. The first image shows how glow in the dark powder added to cement can create an amazing effect when used to mould paving stones. Alternatively the solar powered bricks in the second image can be used to illuminate any regular brick pathway at night, as the bricks charge during the day and automatically brighten up your path as the night draws in.

Wine Not!

We’ve all seen wine bottles used as cheap candle holders at trendy restaurants, but the durable nature of glass makes it an ideal material for use in and around the garden too. The pathway below has been constructed out of hundreds of old wine bottles turned upside-down and jammed into the ground creating a strangely pleasing aesthetic. Obviously you may want to treat this surface to prevent it becoming dangerously slippery in the rain, especially if you’ve developed a severe drinking problem in the process of completing this pathway – which we think is highly likely.

Chess Anyone?

If you want to feel like a vulnerable pawn in the game of life every time you step across your garden then this chess-themed walkway could be the perfect addition to your property. This simple yet effective block design simply requires patience and accuracy to get right, and once you’re done you can take great delight in forcing friends and relatives to walk diagonally and sideways whenever they visit – a joke that will clearly never get old.

Pebble Path

If you spend a lot of your spare tie hanging around in rivers then make yourself useful and pick up a few river stones while you’re wading. If you manage to successfully avoid drowning you can then use these pebbles and rocks to create stunningly ornate and intricate mosaics to act as pathways through your garden. Obviously you’ll need a little patience to pull off something like this, and you wouldn’t enjoy walking down this path whilst inebriated, but the sheer beauty of the end result is surely worth a few weeks living as a tee-total river dweller. Of course if you are actually considering a new pathway and hate DIY  get in touch, we can  sort something out that's a little  less Pinterest and a little more practical!