That would be my comment as well.......configure the pathway where it will be most used :-) If you usually cut that diagonal, that's where it should be.

Angle the path from the driveway into the straight one from the garage. And seriously reconsider the shells. I would use solid pavers, or large slate pieces. Between leaves and snow, you will appreciate the solid surface to walk on and keep clear.

The only way one could intelligently plan the path to the front door is to know how all the major components (street, drive & parking, and entrance) fit together. Your pictures don't explain that. Is this a side or front entrance home? As a starting point, we should be seeing a view that shows the front of house and includes the parking area. I suggest you take the camera to a the city sidewalk (or where it would be if you don't have one) and line up with the center of the view that spans the parking and entrance. Take a series of slightly overlapping photos that pan from far left to far right that includes the complete house front and complete parking area and whatever is in-between.

I'm in disagreement that the typical home warrants a permanent path wherever people cut across the yard. I think you have to understand where that is, but then assimilate it into an aesthetically pleasing path system. In other words, you need to know where people want to go, but find a plan that looks good and doesn't make them work too hard to deviate from the shortest path.

crushed shells, or pebbles or any of the cool looking small stuff, will look good for about 2 weeks. then dirt, debris, leaves, rain, etc, make it look like crap. nothing will stay white. And it will never look neat and clean again.

what about doing brick pavers in a nice herringbone layout?

Sounds like you may design the area in the spring. If you're looking for a temporary solution, I'm not sure it makes sense to place crushed shells.

FWIW, I have heard the argument to place paths where people naturally walk.

Since you specify this is a back door entry most used by you, I'd put the walks where you walk. Curb appeal for the front of the house won't be impacted.

Congratulations on your new home! It’s adorable.

Please indulge my playing around with your picture while I have my coffee. :D

Would something like this work? And I wasn’t able to add them here, but a couple of stepping stones on the area behind the light post (for going from driveway to garage door).

My error. I missed that this was a picture of the BACK door. In that case no need for other pictures.

I suggest that since the doors are offset from one another, you lay out the route with a slight S-curve connecting the two buildings, and a short, straight intersecting path to the parking area ... making the walk no less than 4' width. Each door should have an adequately sized landing, which would be somewhat wider than the walk and the steps.

Just remember to always have access to your septic cleanout, that the area above the field lines will always be moist, never drive over this area.

I would love a paver path, but time and budget are serious considerations right now. We don’t want to wait till spring because of tracking mud into the house with three kids. The house is on the corner, so visible from three sides. Here are some additional pictures

Whatever you put down, make sure you can shovel the snow off the surface easily. Crushed shells may wind up on your grass as you push the snow off the walkway. Also, some pavers have large arc sides so that the shovel hits each paver and you cannot push the shovel. Just some observations from someone with a slate walkway.

Totally adorable house.

I would wait and do it when you have a proper landscaping plan. For example, are you planning to install a fence?

I see a path going to a side door, a path from driveway to back door and another from back door to garage. Perhaps some sort of sidewalk around the perimeter of the house to start?

In any case, don't waste time or money on crushed anything as it won't look good for long. Throw down some wood walkways til you're ready for a cohesive plan.

A concrete walk is going to be the best bang for the buck if your main concern is functionality. If that's too much $ for now, you might be best off to just create a mulch path so as to keep out of the mud at low cost. Later, you can rake the mulch away, use it elsewhere, and install concrete. If you use crushed shells or gravel, it'll be a lot more work to remove and you'll probably have no use for it anywhere else in the yard. If you carefully calculated grade, you could place crushed material lower than what a permanent walk would be, and then build concrete (or whatever) directly over it when the time came. You'd need to make sure it would drain, or puddling would be a problem, too.