How do I add new interlock pavers to my old patio/walkway without it looking funny?

This is a how-to. How-tos are usually really boring. Which is too bad.

So I will start by interjecting.

If you have a funny shaped interlock paver there is no hope of matching it. The squiggly interlock is lame. The keyhole interlock is dumb. Nobody makes it anymore and nothing matches it. Just give up now.

Here is how to match your interlock pavers:

First thing first is to take a piece of your old interlock and bring it to the local “landscape” depot. Do not take it to “The Home” depot.

Take it to a real landscape supply yard, the kind that sells real interlock products.

Ask the girl in the office to identify it. She will probably ask one of the guys on the forklift to identify it. They are wise in the ways of interlock. They will tell you what is most similar. If they cannot identify it, you may go to “The Home” depot and look around, but their stuff is no good, so I don’t recommend it. However, if the guys at the supply yard can’t identify it, it is likely no good anyways.

Once you have a similar product, you take it home. You pick up all the pavers and put them in a pile. You get the new interlock and put it in a pile.

Then you are faced with a decision. You have two options.

You can do the first option. I like this one. You can mix the new interlock in with the old as you lay. You want to keep the ratio consistent. If you have 100 new pavers and 300 old ten you put one new paver down and then three old down, and then one new and three old, and so on, and so on.

That looks nice.

There is another option. I also like this option.

You plan your interlock construction out so that it has one or two or three bands of pavers around it. These accent bands or borders are often known as soldier courses.

You then use the old brick in the middle and the new on the edges. Or vice versa.

That looks nice.

Once I did both those options on the same job.

There was two shades of the same paver (they were shaded differently due to aging) and a new colour, all of the same kind of paver.

I mixed the shades together so you couldn’t tell them apart, and then I added the other colour as an accent band.

That looked nice.

Some other ones are just weird though. 🙂