When homeowners consider improving their home’s ‘curb appeal’ often times the driveway doesn’t really come to mind as much as do garden beds, house paint, windows and shutters. In general, driveways don’t get much respect, even from the home builder who often installs a simple, straight concrete driveway after the home is built. Typically building contractors don’t include many design elements into a driveway, just straight and narrow just enough to accommodate two vehicles.
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If this sad and boring slab of grey concrete sounds like your driveway, I’d like to share some driveway design ideas that can give you a lot of bang for your design buck and boost your home’s curb appeal to expert levels!

• Design your driveway – by this we mean actively and purposefully design your driveway to enhance the style of your home. Driveways act as the first impression to your visitors and welcome you home after a long day. It is entirely possible to design both an attractive driveway as well as a functional driveway.  Options for driveway building materials also go way beyond boring grey concrete. Many newer building materials are durable and weather resistant adding beauty as well as longevity to your landscape and property.
• Driveway Functionality – when designing the perfect driveway for your home it is important to consider functionality to make sure you use the proper materials. You will need to consider usage – heavy or light traffic, number of vehicles requiring parking spots both now in the near future. Thinking through some of these questions will ensure that your concrete contractor designs and installs a driveway that will meet your needs for a long time to come.
• Driveway Navigation – While narrow and straight aren’t necessary the most appealing way to design a driveway, you must also take into account whether or not vehicles of differing sizes can easily maneuver your new driveway. Sharp right angles are not good design features for your driveway because most vars can’t easily navigate sharp turns. More effective driveway designs incorporate large enough curves and turns to accommodate a vehicle’s turn span. Other navigation factors to consider is will cars be backing out of your driveway or will you include a turnaround option? If your property is off of a busy street it may be best to incorporate a turn-around into your driveway design so that everyone can safely exit. Of course, the most obvious key consideration is to make sure that you have a large enough driveway to accommodate your family’s vehicles. You should also factor in vehicle sizes, smaller sedans will need less parking space than larger vans and SUVs.
• Driveway Width – when designing the perfect driveway for you home you will also need to consider the appropriate driveway width. Often times, driveways are installed that are too narrow for two cars but too wide and wastes space for one care. The standard parking space for two cars is typically about 20 feet wide.

As you can see, there are a lot of factors to consider when designing a custom driveway. However, the attention to details will be worth it in the end because custom designed driveways add so much curb appeal to your home as well as provide an excellent return on investment for homeowners.
 
If you are ready to get started on your custom driveway installation, give our expert concrete contractors a call today for a free quote on your project. Our team has the expertise to design a custom driveway that will enhance and beautify your property. 

Stamped concrete driveways will give you an array of pattern options; cobblestone, natural slate, fieldstone, and brick. You can also get a variety of colors to look like actual stone. Cost-effective replicas are the way to go.

The cost of getting your concrete driveways stamped can vary depending on what you are wanting and how many feet you plan to cover. Roughly the cost would be around $8.00 to $12.00 per square foot. If you don't want to stamp your driveway you can hire a Savannah Concrete Contractor to do the work for you.

Stamped Concrete Driveways DIY
First, you will need to place your planks of wood on the ground to create a box for your cement to go in. Then, you will need to get your cement ready. Everyone mixes their cement differently. Be aware not to add too much water and have a high concentrated cement.

Now you need to get prepared for stamping. First, you will need to season your Superflex mats and skins with powder release using your mason brush. Then, you will also dust/broadcast release the slab of concrete with the powder release by picking up some with the mason brush and spread it onto the concrete. Make sure the concrete slab is completely covered. You may want to use a variation of two different colors to give a two-tone natural appearance. Broadcast release with a mason brush instead of by hand. The mason brush will cause a more uniform broadcast. If you use your hand, it is possible to cause rollers and clumps causing the concrete driveways to have permanent marks on them.

Stamping
Use your choice of textured skins around the outer edge of the concrete. Pat the skin down with your hand to put the texture onto the driveway. When placing your mats you will need enough concrete stamps to go across your slab of concrete and two more to come back the other direction.

Make sure the mats are tightly together for an even texture. You will also need to use a tool known as a concrete tamper to pat the mats down. As you work you will need to pick up mats and place them in front of you so you can walk on the mats while using your concrete tamper as you go.

Use touch up wheels to fix any grout joint details that did not show up the best. Detail smaller or hard to reach areas with a chisel. These areas may be close to buildings. If there is rainy weather on the way, you need to use another coat of release powder to repel water.

The stamped concrete will need to sit for 48 to 74 hours. Sweep off the release powder and then pressure wash the concrete slab. For further detailing you can use a grinder with a diamond blade to make the slab look more natural.

For the finishing part, you will need to use a cure and seal allowing the surface to breathe during the curing process and not trap excessive moisture. Two light coats will protect the surface until it cures. At which time the slab should be cleaned and sealed should be reapplied for long term protection. The sealer should be inspected and reapplied as needed based on use.

To get stamped concrete you can hire a Savannah Concrete Contractor and have them do all the work for you. Give us a call today for a free quote!

Poured concrete​Commercial Concrete is the most widely used outdoor surface material used today in the US. We see poured concrete everywhere from driveways and sidewalks to parking lots. It’s no wonder that many homeowners are looking for ways to make the concrete surfaces surrounding their property unique and stand out from their neighbors. One way that many homeowners have found to customize the look of their driveway and sidewalks is to have stamped concrete designs installed. This article talks about a few trends that every homeowner should be aware of before taking the plunge into stamped concrete.

Hand Tooling
Concrete contractors can employ numerous technologies and design techniques to customize your concrete floors, driveways and sidewalks. A common practice is called hand tooling which tends to be more expensive and time-consuming that other techniques and processes. However, the end result is very beautiful and can be fully customized. Utilizing this technique allows concrete contractors to also use any color concrete, or multiple concrete colors to create a truly unique design for your concrete floor, sidewalk or driveway.

Color Blending
When most of us think of concrete we envision plain, boring old grey colored concrete but the good news that through advances in the concrete industry home and business owners now have many more concrete color options to choose from. A variety of concrete colors truly enhances and expands the design options for stamped concrete – if you can dream it up, most likely your local concrete contractor who specializes in stamped concrete will be able to make it happen.

Post-Setting Coloring
If a homeowner is not happy with the color of their new stamped concrete driveway or sidewalk no worries! A process called post-setting coloring is a method used by concrete contractors to add additional colors to the concrete after it has already set. Often creating some truly amazing and unique designs that the homeowner hadn’t even thought about.
 
Add-On Materials
A concrete surface does not have to be boring! Simply adding some materials to the concrete mixture will add new textures that can also help customize your floors, sidewalk or driveway. A facelift for your concrete surfaces is just around the corner with one of these stamped concrete trends!