Your home starts in your head, in the moment you decide to buy ready-made or to build your own house. It’s a dream, an idea. It’s the people you live with. But then, at each step of the process of purchasing or building, or even renovating your house, you will need to make plenty of difficult choices and decisions. Where does my family want to live? How much space do we need? How many stories will be most efficient? How many rooms will satisfy our needs? Those are just a few in a sea of questions you will most certainly ask yourself. However, there are also less obvious ones, concerning matters that will impact the comfort of your living in a way you might never imagine. They’re usually not very exciting but can greatly affect the way your property looks and functions.
One of those matters is the driveway. It’s a detail of greatly unappreciated importance. Like everything else, it must blend into the general design of your property. It’s often situated in and occupies much of the front yard which makes the fact that it’s so often overlooked by homeowners even more surprising.
The visual dialogue between the components of the architecture of your property is just one side of the issue. The other side is the practical one. The greener the surroundings of your house, the better, and in general it’s pretty hard to make an argument against that. However, it is important to remember that inability to maintain each component’s perfect condition might take away from the wow effect you want your property to have.
Whether you’re planning to renovate your existing driveway or to build a new one, here are some tips to take into consideration to make sure your driveway is in unison with the rest of the architecture and that it’s as functional as you need it to be.
Take Care of the Wear and Tear
Driveways face many physical challenges. Frequent foot and vehicle traffic may significantly burden its surface. Exposure to water and temperature changes, grip issues, traction, and possible staining is a pain in the neck of even the most careful homeowners and is hard to prevent with any action other than choosing the right type of driveway material and format of the paver.
The structural integrity of the stone is the first aspect you should take into consideration. Split stones will answer any weight-related issues in different types of driveway. They come in various forms with flagstone paving, filetti, and cobbles being the most popular and suitable.
Filetti is a traditional stone format, highly popular in Europe. It comes in thin and long pieces with two sides split. The top and bottom have a natural surface. Its porphyry chromatism, resistance features, and relatively little size make it a great choice for driveways application.
Cobblestones come in different types of stone but certainly the one most worth considering is the timeless granite. This volcanic rock has a very dense structure making it nearly impossible for it to lose the battle against vehicle weight. Also, it’s very elegant and will look beautiful in both modern and classical design.
Flagstones are famous for their crazy, natural, unpredictable and nearly artistic vibe. These fairly large, flat, loose pieces of stone are irregular in shape and thickness. They don’t fall behind the aforementioned types of driveway stones in terms of their hardness but are perfect for artistic, ecologically sensitive souls – they are usually cut-offs which makes them the less-waste option.
Remember – darker colors of the pavers will perform much better in terms of masking oil spills, tyre marks, and other marks or stains typical for driveways.
Mind the Design
Driveway styles are different for any homeowner. You can seek a more modern, or more natural-looking driveway type. Those criteria apply to both shape and style. There is no universal solution in terms of materials, lines of the architecture, and tones of colors. However, it is worth remembering that nature has its mysterious ways of creating harmony even out of chaos. And after all, harmony is what we’re all looking for. Nature doesn’t like sharp edges, angles. It uses its powers to soften them, make them more accessible and pleasing, enriching even small surfaces with tasty little details. Following that thought, you might consider adding subtle curves to the driveway edge. To make it more unique, try using different types of stone on the borders of your driveway. Pick your materials thoughtfully, creating a beautiful dialogue with the fence, plants, and other architectural components of your property. Let your paveway play with the light. Creating such a conceptually rich composition will highlight what’s best in your property, enhancing its visual and financial value.
The Way the Pavers Lay
Perfection requires a detail-oriented approach. Having chosen the material and the overall design of your driveway, it’s time to focus on the way you lay the pavers. Of course, the chosen paver pattern will depend on the types of stone you pick. Bigger pieces of stone will add massiveness and solidity to the appearance of your driveway. You might also find them less flexible in terms of their adaptability to the chosen shape. It’s not an obstruction you cannot overcome, however to do so you might have to generate more off-cuts and waste. Smaller pieces of stone may be the more cost-effective solution in case your driveway has a more regular shape. They might give it a lighter, more casual feel. However, they might be more difficult to clean.
To Maintain is to Gain
Nothing lasts forever and nothing comes without effort. However, there are actions you can take in order to maximize the endurance of your pavers. It will require certain costs and effort but they can be minimized. To do so, you need to take into consideration what type of driveway material to choose. Again, there’s no right answer here. It all depends on the weather conditions in which your driveway will fight its battles, landform, your own lifestyle etc. In general, natural stone pavers require not as regular maintenance than, for example, loose gravel. They will be more expensive but in time they will turn out to be a better investment.
If you wish to mix things up, there are different ways to do that as well. One of the most popular ways to do so is to incorporate grass or a ground cover in between the hard surface. It will make your driveway look softer and more natural, however, it will certainly require more effort and upkeep. Plants around your driveway can make it look even more beautiful but remember to get some information about the root systems of the plant you consider. If you fail to do that you should be aware that choosing a plant with a strong root system may in time result in deformation or even partial destruction of your driveway.
Automatization is Liberation
Laying the pavers might seem easy. Might even look like something you could do yourself, but remember – any mistakes you might make will become visible after some time when small changes and reparations will probably be more costly and difficult than you’d wish them to be. Invest a little more, find a specialist, and don’t worry about a thing. A bricklaying machine operated by a professional will do the job leaving you without a thing to worry about.
