Yours is not a landscape design question. This question is more appropriate for the Home Forums, where house decorating and remodeling are the focus. Here is a link that might be useful: Home Forums

Thank you for your input. I am leaning towards brown ( not too dark ) but something in between. The back of my house...the stairs off the enclosed deck is trex which is a brownish color. The front porch however has light brick steps with concrete which makes choosing the right color / shade slightly difficult.

Maribeth Sherman Some of the comments above are correct. What: This is Spalling or delamination. It only occurs generally with sedimentary stone, where the bed or how it is formed in layers. Is the dressed or exposed side. Why some will delaminate and others will not. Cause: It is caused by salt/ rising damp/ stone being wet then drying out and leaving the salts behind. Some once above has used the term "efflorescence" which is correct. That is what it is. All salts are highly corrosive and why things rust.... it is the stone version of rusting. Can it be stopped. YES, whilst some one has correctly said about sealer do not work... this is 99% correct. Most sealers for stone are micro porosity impregnating sealer. Which in layman terms, are plastic particles that seal off the pores whilst allowing the stone to breathe. But the problem is they only impregnated from 1/4mm to 2mm into the stone. There is only one product that we know works, is for the life of the stone. So does not need reapplying. More importantly ----WORKS! You will need to clean your stone first before applying. How to clean; Due to the type of stone and the black mould on the surface. You have two options. 1) pressure clean - though this will leave a sand everywhere as it wears away the surface. 2) a solution of 10%sodium hypochlorite (AKA liquid Pool Chlorine). You can apply very easily... Get a spray pack from home depot, bunnings etc. a 10 Litre and add 1 litre of the sodium hypochlorite.... Shake and spray on.... Spray to saturate. It is best to do this on a sunny day... starting at the bottom. Leave on the stone for 20mins and rinse with a hose. It will clean it up like new and then use the DRY TREAT - META CREME to seal. Reapply the Meta Creme as necessary as porous stone will take more in. This is the only product that will stop the spalling and efflorescence attack on the stone. Works and is also great around salt water pools for the same issue.

As far as your paper plan goes, it is fine. But there are flaws in your steps and order of work. I take it that the current walk is 4' width ...? If not, you'll need to construct some new base under that portion. That will be a little messy in the doing, trying to keep dirt out of the existing base, but not impossible. You'll want the base to extend about 6" beyond the finished paver field in all directions, so you might have some base build anyway. Once you get to the point of a tamped base, you'll be ready to screed out the 1/2" of sand. (It can be paver base sand or "play" sand, which is a little easier as it is uniform small bits.) You have to guess the amount of compression that will occur once the pavers are tamped into the sand. You might be setting them 1/2" higher so when they're tamped they end up in the right place. (I usually set 3/4" higher but that's with 2 or more times the setting bed thickness you have.) You'll just have to play with it/experiment to get the setting bed thickness right. Then set all the pavers on the untamped, screeded setting bed until the field and border is complete (including any pavers that need cutting.) Install the plastic edge restraint. It will go at the outside of the paver, set a little lower (according to mfg. directions. I usually use 'old school,' hand-formed concrete edge restraint but it takes a little work with it to get the knack. If not installed correctly, which is easy, it is predisposed to fail. Otherwise, it's great.) Once the edge restraint is securely in place, you can tamp all the pavers down hard, increasing in firmness after the first pass. You'll need a steel tamper, which they sell at Tractor Supply if you have any by you. It would be much harder, impractical to tamp with a mallet. Once tamped and they all look smooth within the field, add masonry sand (or whatever you have) to sweep into the joints and tamp some more. After the joints seem filled, wet everything and tamp some more. When the joints are all filled and it won't compress any more, you are done.