How To Improve The Look Of A Driveway

Posted on June 30, 2020

Your home’s exterior is as important as the interior. You set a particular aesthetic with your yard, your exterior paint, your driveway, and walkways. Does your home look regal and imposing? Does it look warm and welcoming? No matter how you want your home to look, you can take a number of steps to enhance the look of your driveway, from improving the area surrounding the driveway to redoing the driveway itself.

Cleaning Your Driveway

When your driveway is looking unsightly, one of the easiest ways to improve its look is to clean it. Cleaning driveways isn’t always the easiest task, though some may only need a simple sweep. More often than not, if there are stains on your driveway, you’re going to need to pressure wash it.

Pressure washing comes with its own set of dangers, so you need to prepare properly before you start. You’ll need to protect any plants near your driveway with tarps. You’ll also want to protect your home’s siding, as well as any fragile tile on walkways. Sweep up all of the debris and leaves on your driveway, then you can start washing! For a more complete guide, check out this resource from Family Handyman.

Curb Appeal

The area you drive on is only a part of your driveway, when you look at it holistically. When people notice your driveway, they’ll look to the surrounding areas as well. Think of a driveway protected by a small wall of bricks. The bricks surround the driveway, so they’re a part of the “driveway area” – when people think of your driveway, they think of the whole package.

That means you should, at the very least, tend carefully to the parts of your yard that surround your driveway. You don’t necessarily have to do a full renovation with pavers surrounding your driveway to protect your yard, but you should make sure to reclaim your lawn from weeds. Think big picture.

There are a lot of other ways to add curb appeal to your driveway, from flower beds to total landscaping renovations. Small flower beds along your driveway are an excellent DIY project, while replacing your lawn with native plants, xeriscaping, and new hardscaping are usually best left to professionals.

Adding lighting to your driveway is an excellent way of improving its look all while providing safety for anyone pulling in. This technique adds warmth to your home’s exterior, too. Pair it with a lit walkway leading from your driveway to your home for an elegant, inviting atmosphere.

When it comes to curb appeal, your imagination (and budget) really are the only limits. Try to choose hard and softscaping that match well with the materials your driveway is made up of, or try to choose driveway materials that match the surrounding area (more on that next).

The Driveway Itself

You’ve cleaned your driveway, you’ve upped the curb appeal, you’ve put in every effort to beautify the space – and you’re still not satisfied. At this point, there’s only one culprit – the driveway itself. There are a ton of different options when it comes to picking new driveway materials – here are a few:

Gravel is a popular option because it’s quite inexpensive to install. The flip side is that gravel does not do well in cold environments, and it can take a lot of upkeep – far more than other materials, like concrete.

Concrete is one of the most popular options for driveways and if you’re not satisfied with your current concrete driveway, don’t worry. Concrete technology has expanded dramatically over the years, and you can get concrete with all kinds of different looks, from rugged exposed aggregate to a more classic, smooth driveway. You can even get colored concrete, allowing you to match your driveway to your yard and home’s color palette. Concrete is quite low-maintenance, though you may have to reseal it every few years.

While these more traditional options are appealing for a lot of homeowners, you might be feeling something a bit more bold. You can use bricks or pavers in order to create a detailed, patterned, textured driveway. These types of driveway are quite low-maintenance, and pavers and bricks come in all kinds of shapes and colors – you’ll be amazed at the array of patterns that are available.

You might even consider using an epoxy coating to keep your driveway looking keen. These coatings are made up of the same material used in epoxy flooring; using it, you can effectively “paint” your driveway a variety of colors. Epoxy is another easy-to-maintain material (that’s why it’s so popular in flooring); just make sure whatever epoxy coating you use is sustainable in the climate you live in.

There are many different ways to improve the look of your driveway and to make it the envy of your neighborhood.