Rustic Wood Path

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Constructing a rustic wood pathway to go through our new mulch area!

My husband, James, & I added a brand new mulch area to the side of our home this spring (you can read all about that here).  We made sure to make the new area a little bit bigger to accommodate a pathway.

Then, like most things at our home, the area sat empty for a couple months while deliberations were happening!

I wanted to use wood from pallets to create the pathway.  I've seen so many cute ideas on Pinterest & I wanted to recreate them for our pathway.  Also it would be practically free because we already have several pallets laying around.

But...here's the thing:

James hates repurposing stuff, especially wood.  He worked in the construction/carpentry field for many years & has an extreme hatred for reusing old materials.  He would much rather use things that aren't all twisted & beat up with nail holes everywhere, which is totally understandable.  New materials are easier to work with.

James thinks cutting up an old pallet is absolutely ridiculous.  He has obviously never been on Pinterest!  Over there, trash to treasure is everything!  We are complete opposites when it comes to making things so we had to do a little compromising!

James said he would help with the rustic pathway of my dreams if I used new materials.  Never being one to turn down help, off to the local sawmill we went!

We're super fortunate to live in an area with several local Amish sawmills.  We headed to one of them & told them what we wanted.  James asked for them to be cut to size so they were easier to transport as well as saving him from having to cut them.  We picked up the boards about 4 days later.  The boards are rough hemlock so they're new & rustic at the same time.

Once we got the boards home, it was time to create a plan!  I originally wanted a main path with areas that branched off into smaller paths.  After trying to make that happen for far too long, I gave up in favor of a cute & twisty path.

Then it was time to stain the boards.  I wanted the path to somewhat match my rustic fence so I used the same stain.  We already had some on hand but we did end up going to Home Depot & getting more.  We stained both sides of the boards.  Once everything was dry it was time to put the pathway together in the mulch!

We dug the mulch down, placed the boards & then put the mulch back around them.

I'm super happy with how everything turned out.  I think the path looks super cute!

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