Pea gravel is the wrong material to use for walking (imagine walking in a pool of little marbles.) For a walking surface, you need granular material that packs down hard. Sometimes, people use a combination of materials ... driveway gravel (crusher run) as a base, covered with finer, better looking material like decomposed granite or crushed brick, etc. (The "driveway" gravel is less expensive is why to do it this way.)

That said, you would probably hate having a gravel material as the "paving" right outside your home. Instead of a "weedy, muddy mess" you will have sand bits constantly sticking to shoes and being tracked into the house. I suggest for a place close to the house, use a hard surface like pavers or concrete. It is so much better.

even crushed gravel will be unhappy for bare feet, let alone larger pea gravel, which is REALLY unhappy for bare feet. Agree that concrete or pavers would be a better solution for your area.

Maybe it would be better to build a retaining wall to hold the slope towards the area. Kind of like any of these shown here. You can see how it looks against concrete and asphalt on some of these.

http://www.omahalandscapedesign.com/portfolio/retaining-walls/

My slope is much too minimal for a retaining wall. We are putting in a french drain to help with the water coming down the slope.

Do any of you have experience walking barefoot on pea stone? I've have tested it out several times at the stone yard that I'm thinking of purchasing it at and I think it actually feels nice. The stones are rounded.

I'm leaning toward putting in the pea stone and adding in flagstone pavers as I can afford them, starting with the direct route from the door to the gate. I am most concerned as Yardvaard mentions about tracking dirt in the house (right now that's the problem I'm trying to alleviate). The product I'm looking at right now is 3/8" pea stone. Budget is a big factor here and the pea stone is definitely the most affordable option. My dad arrives tomorrow a.m. with his backhoe for the excavation so this project is happening.

Keep any comments coming. I really appreciate everyone's feedback!

I have walked on pea gravel, albeit in shoes. It shifts underfoot, making it difficult to walk. I would not want it again for an area I wanted to walk on.

I don't like walking on pea gravel either barefoot or in shoes. In sandals it combines the worst of both because it gets between the sandal and your foot. I don't think your dogs will particularly like it either as it may get between their pads.

I think if you were going to walk onto a pile of pea gravel for fun, it would be fine ... like walking on a sand dune for fun would be fine. But as a patio surface it would be nasty.

Thanks so much for the positive feedback missymoo12! I really appreciate it. Our pea stone is being delivered tomorrow and we should have it all finished by the weekend. Like your dogs, I'm sure my dogs will be fine with it. It's only about 300 sq ft out of the 8000 sq ft yard that they have.

I did get enough flagstone to make a walkway from the door to the gate and I can always add to that as time goes on. And maintenance is fine for me. I'm that person that walks around my yard a million times a day picking out weeds and whatnot. It's actually something I really enjoy. Again, thanks so much!!

Missymoo12 - Do you have any pictures of your patio? It sounds very much like something we'd be interested in doing - thanks!

I realize this is an old post, but I'd also like to see photos from anyone who has done this! We're looking at gravel for our patio too.

I did a 1" layer of #57s (3/4") river rock over a compacted base of 21A (crusher run) for our patio and we love it. The colors are great and the look works with the rest of the landscape, it's a comfortable walking surface, and it's big enough that our spastic 35 lb and 65 lb dogs don't send it flying.

Installing the decorative gravel over a compacted gravel base is the key. We still get the occasional weed popping up here and there but they're easy to either pull as needed, or take out with the weed torch.