Driveway Options?

[JimVonBaden]

Anyone have some ides about a driveway paver design?

I am thinking a two-tone herringbone brick (concrete) paver design with a border, but am open to ideas.

Something like this:



Here is a drawing of the space, which is 28'X34' in the potential paved section. I have access to free crushed concrete to fill it in, but since there will be very little front yard, I want it to look very nice, like it is landscaped.

Currently it looks like this:



The driveway on the right goes to the garage in back, and will stay as is for now, but the asphault parking area in front needs to be redone. This is a drawing of the current plan.



I have a retaining wall in front of the house by the sidewalk now that will be knocked out and replaced with a new one that incorporates a set of pillars with metal insert fence.

Kind of like this, but with the posts integrated into the retaining wall:


I'll post drawings later.

So, anyone want to share theirs, or ones they like for inspiration?

By the way, the back patio will also be done at the same time. I welcome ideas for it too, no deck, just patios.

Thanks,

Jim

[troidus]

Is the county going to ding you for creating additional impervious surface? That's something we have to be mindful of here.

[adam_c_eckhardt]

I did one a few years ago for my parents- Let me try to pull up some pictures...

So far only found this one showing a circle kit going together:

From April 8, 2012

Hang tight for pictures of the actual pattern we used for the rest of the driveway.

[JimVonBaden]

Originally Posted by troidus

Is the county going to ding you for creating additional impervious surface? That's something we have to be mindful of here.

Permit? We don't need no stinking permit!

Seriously, the retaining wall will have drains connected to the 12" of rock fill. One reason that pavers beat a concrete slab.

Jim

[JimVonBaden]

Originally Posted by adam_c_eckhardt

I did one a few years ago for my parents- Let me try to pull up some pictures...

So far only found this one showing a circle kit going together:


Hang tight for pictures of the actual pattern we used for the rest of the driveway.

Looks interesting. I assume those pavers were designed for the curve?

JIm

[Bounder]

This is a great site for ideas, its aimed at this side of the pond but I'm sure it will be the same on that side bar some local ordinances.
http://www.pavingexpert.com/

[adam_c_eckhardt]

Originally Posted by JimVonBaden

Looks interesting. I assume those pavers were designed for the curve?

JIm

Yes, the particular company we bought the pavers from sell them as "circle kits." They're not that hard to put together- the trick is not to look too close as you're building it- the gaps aren't perfect. But, once it's all together it looks really sharp. That particular circle is twice as large as 1 circle kit. We also used other circle kits to do small circles in some of the corners, and we put in two half circles along a border.

I've got two more pictures of other things- (like a picture of a car) BUT it shows our pattern and the finished circle really well. For some reason I'm having a hard time uploading it, but I'll try to get it up tonight. If it doesn't work I'd be happy to just email it to you.

It was a LOT of work, but manageable. Make sure you take breaks to stretch your hands and arms. I imagine you could do some tendon damage if you don't.

The best part of the project was that people were stopping by asking for our business card wanting us to do their driveway. They were shocked to find out that we were the homeowners. (We did get a quote- $30,000 FWIW- did it for $9,000 in materials)

[JimVonBaden]

Originally Posted by Bounder

This is a great site for ideas, its aimed at this side of the pond but I'm sure it will be the same on that side bar some local ordinances.
http://www.pavingexpert.com/

Interesting site. It will take a while to wade through it.

Thanks,

Jim

[JimVonBaden]

Thanks Adam,

Looking forward to it.

Jim

[GreaseMonkey]

Back when I was teaching and had summers off, I worked one summer for the Public Works dept of a suburb north of Chicago. I learned a lot as we did a lot of asphalt, concrete, and brick work. I like your pattern but one thing I learned from that job was the more colors there are the bigger the hassle if you have to do any repair work down the road.

As mentioned, a lot of brick work looks pretty crazy from a foot away when you are on your knees but when you stand up it looks pretty darn professional. However, if you have some separate color line and the line shifts or a brick gets out of the line a bit, that can be noticeable. Also, we had to pull up some brick when we had to repair a water line and in addition to the red there was a gray line of bricks that had gotten broken and could not be exactly matched. No big deal for an entry at a strip mall but if it was my driveway I know it would have bothered my wife. However, those areas see 1000 times the traffic your driveway and parking area will see and unless you suspect you might have an errant tree root in 15 years or something this is probably a non-issue for you.

Good luck, and whatever you choose I'm sure you will have a nice looking drive when you are done!

[JimVonBaden]

Some ideas for the front retaining wall and fence combination:









I favor the straight lines because not only will it be easier, but the house has no curves at all. All angles.

Jim

[adam_c_eckhardt]

OK-
I came up with these two pictures. First one just shows how we detailed our corners. You'll see that we did a border in the grey, and all the circle kits were grey as well. In the corners we only used the first few rows of the circle kits:


This picture is at least 10 years old, because this car was sold quite a while ago. You can see that the pattern is a mix of rectangles and squares. The rectangles are a mix of a red color and the same grey we used in borders and circles. The small squares are all grey (Edit- I lied the square are also red and grey):


You might notice that there are different shades of grey and red. We ordered close to 30 pallets total and there is variation. The key is to pull a couple off different pallets as you go along to make sure they're mixed nicely.

I'm happy to answer any do-it-yourself type questions- we did the entire project ourselves with no outside help. It was a lot of fun and extremely rewarding. As my wife and I are building a home soon I already have visions of doing at least our parking area out of pavers somewhere down the road.

[JimVonBaden]

That looks great Adam!

Did you use a wet saw for the cuts, and how did you do the curve cuts? Very nice work!

Jim

[rebake]

Jim-our local blacktoppers have a system where they can stamp a design into the fresh blacktop to make it look like brick or stone.May be one in your area.Ed

[adam_c_eckhardt]

Originally Posted by JimVonBaden

That looks great Adam!

Did you use a wet saw for the cuts, and how did you do the curve cuts? Very nice work!

Jim

We bought an MK paver saw. The model number 1080 stands out in my head, but I could be off. I think it was 1.5 horsepower and yes it was wet. We also bought a stand for it, which was worth every penny. At the time the saw and stand were a little over $1000, but it was way better than renting. After we were done my father traded that saw for a Toro garden tractor to take care of a vacant lot across town. So we definitely got good value out of that saw.

As for the curve cuts- well- don't tell anybody, but those cuts are all straight.** That's the illusion that I was hinting at earlier. I came up with a technique that worked for me (in terms of determining the perfect angle) and once my father saw what I was doing he said "Great- you're cutting all of them." It was time consuming, but I'd plug away at that while my father worked elsewhere and I'd say all the cuts for that huge circle took less than a day.

**There are a handful of pavers (maybe 3 or 4) along the circle where a straight cut didn't look good enough to me, so I made an angled cut by approaching the cut from each side. Because of the angle of the saw this was a little tricky, but nothing a chipping hammer couldn't fix.