Small Home Improvement Project - Driveway Refresh

 

I mentioned before I'm doing a complete re-landscaping of my home from the curb at the street all the way to the backyard fence line.  Curb appeal has been lacking around here and since that is the first thing you see when you pull up to my house I really wanted to work on that.

 

The gravel was a bit thin

And the weeds were having a heyday

When I first moved into my house in 1995 there was an overplanted narrow grass strip beside our long driveway.  Once I had cleaned out all of the bedraggled plants, shrubs and trees the grass strip looked terrible.  Plus, it served no useful purpose.  I felt this area would make for better parking instead of wasting water to try to keep the grass strip green.  I remove the grass and laid down weed barrier and gravel.

 

Some remnants from our recent projects and more weeds

At the time I did this I wasn't making much money and didn't have a lot of knowledge on this kind of stuff, but I did my best.  I couldn't afford a truckload of gravel but bagged gravel at the time was affordable so I bought some weed barrier (wrong kind for a parking area) and as many bags of gravel I could and got started.  For several paydays after I'd buy more bags of gravel and keep at it.

 

Let's get this party started!

Initially, it looked good and functioned just fine.  Over time, as the gravel thinned in spots, I'd add more gravel and then eventually life got in the way and I stopped.  In more recent years the weeds began to take over in a battle I seemed to be losing no matter how many I pulled up.  It look awful and it embarrassed me.  Well, I'm not embarrassed anymore.

 

And now, no weeds, no bald spots

A much nicer space for parking and our bins

After the girl and I hauled in the three truckloads of gravel I took a day off and then I got busy.  I worked in the early morning hours while it was nice and cool outside and cleaned up all of the gravel and degraded weed barrier.  I also cleaned up all of the weeds.  Then I installed lawn edging all the way along the property line from where the fence stopped to the sidewalk replacing the rotten timbers that I put in originally.  The lawn edging I used was some of what I had removed from the front yard so it cost me nothing to do and it sure looked a whole lot better than those old timbers.

 

No shame here.  Those old timbers will be cut up and used for firewood

I still have some gravel left

Once the prep work was done I laid down a nice thick layer of gravel all the way up along the driveway and over to the property line.  I even have gravel where there never was any.  I moved our trash and recycle bins to a new spot and even though we extended our front yard out further when we moved our fence, we still have plenty of parking space for two vehicles if we need it.  It looks neat, tidy, clean and finished.  Exactly what I was after.  But wait, there's more.  I'm adding a new flowerbed out there too.  Yes, there is still room for some landscaping in front of the house and I am super excited about that.  Be sure to check back and see what I do.