Front Pathway Design Help - 3 Ideas. Stupid or Not?

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OK. Current path to my front door is about 4.5" thick concrete with obvious small stone / pebble mix. It looks dated so Ideally I'd like to replace with slabs with some cobble edging. The options in my little DIY head are:
  1. Lay slabs over the path (the path is quite level)
  2. Pull up the existing path and replace with slabs (Big & expensive comparatively, as the concrete is extremely thick and solid and costly to get taken away
  3. Screed the existing path but then angle grind shapes into the path to make them look like slabs (Don't laugh!)
Issues:

Option 1: is that this raises the path even higher and I have a garden next to it that I'd like to pebble over. However, I have air blocks to the house that are quite low down so I couldn't lay the pebbles too deep but at the same time, I'd want the pebbles to cover the edging of the path

Option 2: Labour and cost primarily

Option 3: Would it look daft?

Attached is my path and the area to the left (sandy / weedy bit) is my 'garden'. You can just see the house's air-blocks to the left near the ground. The edging stones already there look a lot worse in real life. Don't be fooled!

Any advice would be very much welcome! Thanks.
path.jpg
 
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I think the “garden” would be my priority rather than the path.

Have you tried just cleaning it up with a pressure washer? I don’t see any cracks or other major issues in the bit we can see in the photo.
 
Thanks endecotp. The path is completely sound with no cracks, but it does look like the old Council paving slabs (cheap) and no amount of jet-washing will change that. The garden was / is my priority, but my logic is that by addressing the garden alone will make the path look even more tired / dated than it is already, so I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

It's not a huge front garden , so I could ideally get both jobs done in a couple of days max (famous last words!) Cheers.
 
Box air brick in with a edging about a foot from the house.
You can sheet and lay shingle at lower level, so it drains below A-brick
Slab the path, leave a gap at the house, 75-100mm so its away from wall, you can run gravel in the gap.

Sheet and gravel old lawn mud area, have a beer
 
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once a year I pressure wash my 50's/60's concrete drive. It's cracked and dropped in a couple of places but at the end of the day, you park cars on it.
As the drive is slightly lower than the path, dirt builds up and pressure washing changes it from horrid brown to almost white. By the time winter comes around, it's back to grot but looks good while it lasts.

You can buy quite thin slabs if your concrete is ok? keep it away from the house by building a recessed grate/coconut mat area
 
Used Indian sandstone on my path edged with granite sets.
Bit of faux grass to finish .
That looks fab. My concern is that I need to have just enough gravel to not go over the air blocks but there be enough to cover the base of the granite sett edging so as not to show the mortar I will be laying them on. Obviously this wouldn't be an issue with option 3 but that is a lot of work / cost, which I'm loathed to do, but may have to. Cheers.
 
once a year I pressure wash my 50's/60's concrete drive. It's cracked and dropped in a couple of places but at the end of the day, you park cars on it.
As the drive is slightly lower than the path, dirt builds up and pressure washing changes it from horrid brown to almost white. By the time winter comes around, it's back to grot but looks good while it lasts.

You can buy quite thin slabs if your concrete is ok? keep it away from the house by building a recessed grate/coconut mat area
Thanks for this. The concrete is sound and I reckon I could get away with 20mm slabs. That said, why would I need to keep it away from the house (well I understand why because of drainage issues) but if the existing concrete path runs all the way up to it, why can't I run slabs all the way to the house as well? Cheers.
 
Because (possibly) you will raise the path closer (too close?) to the dpc. Ideally you want 4" or so
Hence the suggestion of a depression into which you could have a foot scrapping mesh thing
 
Because (possibly) you will raise the path closer (too close?) to the dpc. Ideally you want 4" or so
Hence the suggestion of a depression into which you could have a foot scrapping mesh thing
Thanks Tigercubrider, that makes perfect sense.
 
you could go for resin bound if the concrete is sound -not sure that its a diy option though.
 
I like the idea of a two stage drop that foxhole has in their garden. This will allow me to have a thin layer of gravel on the garden (below the air blocks) which will then meet an edging before the path that will be a little higher. I can then fill between that and the path edge with some and add some shrubs. Now to work out how many slabs I need! Cheers folks.
 
once a year I pressure wash my 50's/60's concrete drive. It's cracked and dropped in a couple of places but at the end of the day, you park cars on it.
As the drive is slightly lower than the path, dirt builds up and pressure washing changes it from horrid brown to almost white. By the time winter comes around, it's back to grot but looks good while it lasts.

You can buy quite thin slabs if your concrete is ok? keep it away from the house by building a recessed grate/coconut mat area
Cheers Tigercubrider. I've been looking at how I create a recess grate but all the drainage channels I've seen are built deeper than the 2cm difference between the slab and the path below. I guess I could cut part of the path away to accommodate but am I creating more work than is needed, or is there simpler solution? Cheers.
 

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