It's easy to see that after two years you're anxious to get going and "do" something. The house appears to be in a somewhat rural setting. You don't indicate what part of the US you live in. A brick walkway suggests to me a more formal setting, though perhaps you envision working toward a "Williamsburg" look. I would put the digging on hold until you have worked out a more comprehensive plan for the whole property. Not that you have to have every last detail figured out. Make a list of some of the issues. Here, in no particular order, are some that come to mind: 1. Need dry footing from car to house entrance. 2. Actual house entrance (porch) and "visual" entrance (front door) are not the same. 3. House and barn are not related, either architecturally, or spatially. 4. Need to hide childrens' play equipment. 5. Safe place for children to play. 6. Would like some flower beds. And so on. If you have a survey of the property that shows the location of the buildings relative to each other you might find it easiest to work through these things on paper, as a professional would. It could be worthwhile for you to engage the help of a qualified landscape professional, even on an hourly basis, just to help you get started in the right direction.

Until the influx of concrete paver products, most homes in the northeast had asphalt driveways with poured concrete walks. Exposed aggregate is a ook that conjures up shopping malls or office parks in these parts, so they are not generally wanted on a residence. Since most driveways up here are asphalt, any walk connected to it looks normal simply because it is normal. Red clay brick, bluestone, concrete pavers, natural irregular shaped or rectangular stepping stones in the lawn, the same are often used in contiguous walks are all common and normal from most driveway types to most types of steps. Budget sounds like a big issue to you. If it is, why not use large flgstyones as stepping stones until you get it figured out? It is easy and the stones can be re-used later. Tumbled Bluestone Rectangular Bluestone (not the best picture, but a very elegant walk when well placed using 24"x36" with a gentle curve) Irregular Bluestone

Check my web site to see what I did with broken brick. Go all the way to the bottom of the page under my introduction and click on updating photos. It will be about the 3rd pic over in that section. You will see all the paths I did around my pond with all the broken bricks. I had all of these left over from the families old homeplace. It was the chimneys bricks. lol Anyway I had to dig them out of the soil where they were piled many many years ago and then had to knock off the old cement they were put together with. So I wound up breaking some of them and this is what I used the rest for. I made the walkway out of the others that were whole and I actually like the brokens ones the best believe it or not. Just keep clicking on more of the process until you get to about the 3rd page over in the updating photos and you will see all the paths. Here is a link that might be useful: Ponding site

"my electrician said I need line voltage lighting because that is what I already have" Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn2Bh6dNP_w, ignoring the part about installing uplights (not dark-sky compliant, obviously). In the latter part of the video, he describes how to bury the low-voltage cable: dig a shallow trench, put the cable in it, and cover it up. As noted here, line-voltage wire has to be installed deeper than low-voltage. However, I don't see any reason why you couldn't re-use line-voltage wire as low-voltage by simply adding a transformer to the circuit as shown in the video. Volt has a number of videos on low-voltage landscape lighting. Home Depot sells landscape lighting. If you click the "Low Voltage" button you'll see a lot more of the dark-sky type fixtures you're looking for than if you click the "Line Voltage" button.