Y’all, I can’t believe how much progress has been made in these last few weeks. We had my workshop built. We had our driveway poured. We had a ramp poured to connect the carport to the workshop. I finished my studio. And yesterday, my mom and I completely cleared out the carport. A lot has happened in a relatively short period of time!
I was actually shocked that we got the whole carport finished yesterday. I had my doubts that we could accomplish that, but we powered through and got it done. And it’s all looking so good!
I so wish that I had been able to power wash the carport and the little concrete pad on the side next to the side studio door before taking pictures, but there was no time for that yesterday, and I don’t want to delay any more in showing you our new driveway. I also came very close to calling the man who hauls away my junk for me to come and clean up my scrap/junk/demo pile on the back patio, but then I realized that if I had him come yesterday to do that, he’d be the first person to drive on my driveway. I couldn’t let someone else drive on my driveway before I get the chance! 😀 So I just threw a tarp over my junk pile. As soon as I drive on my driveway the first time and pull up into the carport, I’ll call him to pick up my junk pile. So for now, let’s just pretend it’s not there.
Let me remind you what the side of our house looked like just about two weeks ago…
And now it looks like this…
I just can’t get over what a HUGE difference this made to the curb appeal of our house!
And y’all, I’ve been waiting eleven years for this!!
You can still see where I used to park in front of the studio. 😀 But this curvy driveway turned out better than I had even expected. It’s just so nice!
And now, I feel so motivated to get some landscaping done. Until now, I’ve talked about landscaping, but without the driveway in place, it was so hard for me to really get excited about it because I knew that the driveway would be integral to the overall plan. But now it’s in place, and I’m ready to take the landscaping ideas from concept to reality.
I took all of these pictures this morning, and it’s a pretty dreary day, so things are looking a bit grayer than usual today.
And now that there’s a driveway meeting that little concrete pad under the side studio door, I’m anxious to build those steps! I never did it because the way I want to build them meant that the first step would be really tall (the height of the step plus the height of the concrete pad, which is about an additional five inches), and that would have created a difficulty for my short legs. But now that the step down from the concrete pad is gone, and it now meets the driveway, I’m excited to get those steps built. (And I need to do it very soon before that exposed OSB gets destroyed.)
As you can see, it’s all very gray right now. Gray concrete, gray paint. But I’ll make it cute, including some matching blue shutters for the windows of the workshop and some landscaping around it.
Here’s where you have to overlook my junk pile, which is even larger after we combined the junk/demo pile with the scrap lumber pile yesterday. But here’s a look at my brand new ramp connecting the carport to the workshop.
Oh, and look! Many of you in past posts have mentioned that I need a better place for my trash cans (which were always somewhere at the front of the house). They fit perfectly right here, and this is a very convenient place for them!
Okay, here are a few more pictures presented without commentary. Just tell me this is the most gorgeous concrete you’ve ever seen. 😀
The total cost of the whole driveway and ramp came to $23,700. That includes $3,600 for having all of the trees removed (although they also cleared out piles of limbs from other areas of the back and front yard), and then $20,100 for the concrete. The concrete and labor cost $16,750 for the driveway (which is 167 feet long, 16 feet wide in most places, but 24 feet wide by the carport), and $3,350 for the ramp. The whole project (driveway and ramp) required 50 yards of concrete, which I was told is half the amount used for the average home foundation.
I can’t wait to get my power washer out and clean up the floor of the carport and the side pad for the side door steps. I don’t know that I can get it so clean that it’ll match the new concrete, but it’ll definitely clean up enough to look pretty close. And also, I wish I could tear down that sunroom today. Now that things in the back yard are starting to happen, I just hate looking at the back of that sunroom. But it’ll all happen in time. I just have to be patient. For now, I’ll just look the other direction and admire my new beautiful driveway and ramp.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
