@BurkusCircus52 posted:How did you do the sidewalks? They look great!
Thanks! The sidewalks under the building are part of the building foundation & are made of 1/4" MDF. The sidewalks between buildings are made out of a wooden yardstick from Lowes - also 1/4" thick. (I stole the yardstick idea from someone else - that's certainly not my idea). I scored and painted each piece using the same technique - but found the yardstick pieces much easier to work with than MDF.
The yardstick was cut to size to fill the gaps between buildings, then I filled/sanded the top side to cover where the measurements were printed (and indented!). I used spackle as it is easy and cheap (at least cheap relative to wood filler).
Once that was done, I measured out and marked curbs and sidewalk gaps on each piece. These were then scored with a box cutter, and given a light sanding again to remove any debris. I also rounded the top "front" side of each piece for a nice rounded curb.
I spray painted the sidewalks light gray (though I hear a light khaki is also a popular color amongst sidewalk aficionados). Once they were dry I used a very thin marker to emphasize any cracks/gaps that didn't come through as well as they should have. After that, I installed then & dry-brushed them over with an "aged concrete" paint to give variation in the color tone. (Note: I may also try using a wash of aged concrete paint for a more uniform look on future sections, if I do it pre-install). The nice thing about doing the aging OVER a lighter/crisper color is that you can easily make sections of sidewalk looks as though they were freshly replaced by just leaving those parts alone. I experimented with that on a small section of this sidewalk (not shown in photos) & liked the result.
