How Updating Your Driveway Can Improve Your Landscape Design in Madison WI

If your driveway is broken down or tired and it’s time for a new one, read on about how updating your driveway can improve your landscape design in Madison, WI. While you may be tempted to replace your driveway with asphalt or poured concrete, there’s an option that will boost your curb appeal, unify your hardscape areas, and, dare we say, put a big smile on your face.

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After all, your driveway is the thing you see first when you come home and it’s an important part of the first impression visitors get. And yet, it’s the part of the landscape that is probably most neglected: relegated to purely utilitarian status rather than a beautiful and functional element. Given all the pluses, you can’t do better than concrete pavers.

What Concrete Pavers Will Do For Your Home

Pavers will give your home a finished look: again, like the driveway is more than an afterthought but an important landscape element. You’ve invested in your cars, your outdoor living spaces, and your home (and its softscapes) so why not tie the whole package together with an attractive paver driveway?

Your driveway should reflect your home’s style and quality. Today there are endless choices in concrete pavers: different styles, colors and textures to perfectly complement your home and give it a wonderful “put together” look.

Pavers give you a chance for artistic self-expression. Your driveway is a blank canvas, where you can mix and match different types of pavers for a one-of-a-kind look that enhances the style of your home and complements your other hardscapes and the surroundings. For example, you could install trendy plank-style pavers in the main field, with a brick border that matches your home’s siding. Or, rustic textured flagstone-look pavers with a cobblestone border. Or, large-format square pavers in a granite pattern, with a charcoal black brick border. Design flexibility like this means your driveway will turn heads and still be a practical place to park the cars!  

No material is harder-wearing than concrete pavers. Asphalt and poured concrete are both solid surfaces that will eventually crack, heave, and crumble due to the movement of the earth and the freeze-thaw cycle. Concrete pavers, on the other hand, are individual units. This allows for some temporary movement without the surface becoming uneven. Individual pavers are also much easier to replace in the unlikely event a paver should break from having something heavy dropped on it, or if you needed to excavate under the driveway to install utilities. Instead of redoing the whole driveway, you can replace individual pavers or a small section.  

You can create a greener, eco-friendly driveway using concrete pavers. Any solid surface automatically promotes runoff which can overwhelm the storm drain system. But permeable pavers solve the problem of snowmelt and rain by allowing water to seep into the joints between pavers into a special substrate that then allows the water to make its way into the aquifer - all without causing any heaving or movement of the paver surface. 

And when it comes to design, many pavers can do double duty as driveway pavers as well as outdoor living pavers for your patio, walkway, front entry, and pool deck. So not only do pavers do a lot for your wallet (since you won’t have to replace them as often as solid surface driveways) they also do a lot for your soul. Driveways can be both functional and beautiful!

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