Like a Cobblestone Street

I don't normally think a whole lot about driveways, but in the last few years ours was getting a lot of cracks in it and the end of it close to the road was badly damaged from heavy trucks. So while we were out of town we had the driveway worked on. I guess the driveway does have something to do with curb appeal, too. We thought we were going to save some money by just having the damaged parts cut out and then new concrete poured, but our friend who was overseeing the project while we were gone realized that it was taking to long for them to cut out small sections and that was going to run the labor costs way up. He let them just go ahead and take out almost the whole driveway except for the part they had already cut out in front of the garage.

I don't have any before shots, but that would bore you to death anyway.

Look how darn white it is. I really will be glad when it tones down some.

We were going to stain the whole thing, but Mr. Savvy has changed his mind.
You can also see how dry our yard has gotten. Not quite as green, but we finally got some rain last night.

Now this is the exciting part. Whoever thought a driveway could get exciting. Well, it can. I love old cobblestone roads and we made the end of our driveway look like one. I took these pictures while the guy was sealing it. This was done by adding a base color to the concrete and then a colored powder is thrown on the wet concrete to create a color mix. Then the wet concrete is stamped with this pattern. This is cheaper than the real thing.

Look how pretty that is. We had it done in a terracotta color so it would go with the rock on the front of the house. I am thinking about painting my front door in a terracotta color.

In fact I think I found the perfect color while looking at my new House Beautiful magazine. A pretty clay looking color called Firenze (Florence) by Benjamin Moore paints. BM is my favorite brand.
 It was like it was  an answer to what I was considering doing.

The best part was that after the driveway was good and hard the next day the guys came back and pressure washed the drive way and our old grungy sidewalk. Look how nasty it was.

Here you can really see how black it had turned.

Here you can really see the difference where the guy was cleaning it. I don't know why we hadn't cleaned this before. It has been fifteen years.

Much better. All nice and clean and still drying in this shot.

One last shot of it all finished. Now we just have to fix the grass that was torn up down the sides
of the driveway. That has to be done soon so the new grass can take root before cold
weather gets here.


Linking to Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday.

I want to thank everyone for welcoming Traci. You guys are awesome!

Have a super week. I will be getting ready for guests next weekend.


Y'all come back now,

KIM