Remodeling my house. Driveway suggestions?

[T_Raven]

Bought this house last Nov. Spent a couple months working on remodeling it before I deployed to Afghanistan. Some of you have probably seen post about me working in Iraq..and getting kicked out lol. I wasn't planning to come back over here but income at home sucked so I came back over in March. I also got married in Aug while I was home on leave. I have a house and wife, I'm such an adult now.

One of the main things I'm planning to do when I get home is redo my driveway and add to it. I've pretty much decided on concrete for all of it. It's about 3500 sq ft total, so I'd like it to look a little better than just a big plain slab of concrete. I'm not trying to spend a fortune though. so if anyone has any suggestions of how to make it look good I'd appreciate the input. I've been looking at pictures on the web for a while but haven't found anything.



Front of the house



Drawing of what I want paved so I can drive in and out of the garage and shop and park to the side of each. The house is on one of the busiest streets in town so I want a nice big parking lot out front to park all my cars in as well as turn around in so my wife and I don't have to back out into traffic.

[T_Raven]

Might as well show of the rest of the house

This was a forclosure. it was smoked in and I guess the PO was a bit of a horder. Unfortunately they had cleaned out all the junk. I would rather have bought it a little cheaper and cleaned it up myself. 3 bd 2 bath upstairs with 3rd bath/laundry room upstairs. 2 bd 1 bath down stairs. I think it's 2300 sq ft with the basement, sitting on .4 acres. Shop is 27x44 inside. Paid $93,000 for it.

Here is the living room before



And after. I wanted to remove the chimney completely but I'm pretty sure it's load bearing, so I sheet rocked around it. The fireplace went all the way through so I sheet rocked the inside and left the hole. People come over and are confused by the hole lol.



Another angle before and after





Master bedroom was disgusting. Red walls and carpet, cigarette burns and stains all over the carpet.

Before and after

[gak68]

See if anybody does stamp-crete in your area it is pretty cool stuff.

[astroracer]

Like he said... You can also check into coloring the concrete. A friend of mine just built a huge barn and the concrete guy did a checkerboard pattern in the approach, looks real nice.

[regal454]

I would recomment cutting in the control joints in the concrete instead of tooling them in. This way you can roll a jack over them. You'll be glad you did.

[T_Raven]

Kitchen was a horrible combination of orange walls and yellow counter tops lol





So far only painted the walls and replaced the appliances



Originally we were going to try to do the kitchen as cheap as possible and just paint the cabinets, re laminate the counters, and tile the floor. But we're most likely going to redo the whole thing instead.

this is roughly the layout I want to go with. The placement of the fridge would disrupt the whole "kitchen triangle" thing but the fridge I want is big and would go well there.

[T_Raven]

Garage and shop





The shop isn't as big as I'd like, but with all the room I have to park cars in front and behind it, it'll work. I'm going to install a lift as well as some other equipment. Finish the sheet rock and paint it. Either stain or epoxy the floor. Once the shop is done I can finally take my 67 apart. I've had it for 14 years but never had a place to take it apart to do the body work.

Big back yard. There's a garage door on the back side of the shop. I've got three cars sitting back there under the trees. I'd like to put something down to park on so they're not in the mud and maybe make some kind of cover to park under to keep pine needles and snow off of them.



And what was left of the mess the PO left behind. Some one actually went to the trouble of nailing all those branches to the deck.

[T_Raven]

See if anybody does stamp-crete in your area it is pretty cool stuff.

This is one thing I want to check out. From what I've read online it sounds like it adds a lot to the cost but I'll have to get a quote. I could do the lanes in front of the doors just regular flat slabs and then stamped stuff on the sides.

Like he said... You can also check into coloring the concrete. A friend of mine just built a huge barn and the concrete guy did a checkerboard pattern in the approach, looks real nice.

I forgot all about coloring. I'll check that out

I would recomment cutting in the control joints in the concrete instead of tooling them in. This way you can roll a jack over them. You'll be glad you did.

Excellent idea, I never thought about that. I'm sure I'll be rolling plenty of stuff around out there.

[Cole]

Pavers!

[T_Raven]

Pavers!

Pavers are sweet. It sounds like they are pretty expensive though. I'm thinking about doing a border either with pavers or stamped, and keep the rest flat so I can roll stuff around on it.

[astroracer]

You have tons of options for your concrete. Just have a few quotes done to get an idea on prices.
I forgot to mention in my first post, you have done a hell-uva-job on the inside of the house! Keep up the good work!
Mark

[T_Raven]

You have tons of options for your concrete. Just have a few quotes done to get an idea on prices.
I forgot to mention in my first post, you have done a hell-uva-job on the inside of the house! Keep up the good work!
Mark

Thanks man, it's a lot of work but it's been a lot of fun. The walls were smoke stained from all the cigarettes. We had to scrub them all with TSP, primered everything twice and finally painted.

If anyone is planning to get carpet in the future, I got the softest stuff at Lowes and used memory foam pad. It's like walking on bunnies.

[Ron.in.SoCal]

You know what walking on bunnies feels like? Congrats on the house. Looks like it's coming along nicely!

[BonzoHansen]

Nice work.

The before shots of the kitchen look like the house from the brady bunch lol

[FlyDoc]

1973 called and they want there kitchen back! lol.

the driveway best to do is to stain it looks out standing.
you could put in drive on / storage lifts and free up some space.
the house is looking good. to bad Kitchens are so expensive to remodel!

http://www.concretenetwork.com/

[T_Raven]

1973 called and they want there kitchen back! lol.

the driveway best to do is to stain it looks out standing.
you could put in drive on / storage lifts and free up some space.
the house is looking good. to bad Kitchens are so expensive to remodel!

http://www.concretenetwork.com/

Yeah the kitchen was bad. I don't know how anyone ever thought those stick on floor tiles looked good.

Thanks for the link. I've searched the web quite a bit but I don't know if I've seen that site yet

[T_Raven]

Here's a rough idea of what I'm thinking. I want to widen the entry way so I can back my trailer in more easily. I already park my Civic on the grass to the left of the garage so I want to pave that area. I can easily park 2 cars there without blocking the garage. I want to go all the way to the edge of the shop on the right side so there's not only room to drive in and out of the shop but also to park on the right side of the door.

[LeighP]

Around here, coloured/pattern stenciled concrete is popular.....its not really much more expensive than regular concrete, wears well and is oil resistant when sealed.....has to be resealed every few years though to keep looking good.

Heres my place, previous owner didn't seal the concrete and its around 7 years old now....I've cleaned it, but I need to seal it properly.





If you go this way, make sure whoever lays the concrete leaves a brush finish to the surface...if they trowel finish it, then its sealed, the surface can be dangerously slippery when wet.

[T_Raven]

Never seen that before. Looks pretty cool. A pattern like that is what I had in mind for stamping the border.

[Johnny Blaze]

man that driveway looks killer!

Around here, coloured/pattern stenciled concrete is popular.....its not really much more expensive than regular concrete, wears well and is oil resistant when sealed.....has to be resealed every few years though to keep looking good.

Heres my place, previous owner didn't seal the concrete and its around 7 years old now....I've cleaned it, but I need to seal it properly.





If you go this way, make sure whoever lays the concrete leaves a brush finish to the surface...if they trowel finish it, then its sealed, the surface can be dangerously slippery when wet.