How to make the driveway naice?

[thatbitpink]

We're doing the outside of our house and are stuck with knowing what to do with our small driveway. It's large enough for a car and we have very ugly cement there now.

Walked about the neighbourhood yesterday and everyone has the same.

Are there some other types of stones that could be put down? I know that sometimes oil leaks out of cars so I need to bear that in mind but surely we can get something that looks a bit better than cement (and we don't really want chuckies)

Paving slabs with nice brick edging, or bricks in a wishbone pattern look nice but is expensive.

I've also seen cement with cobblestones, gravel or shells embedded in it or bricks in a grid pattern with cement in between IYSWIM so it breaks up the cement.

You can get cobblestone effect slabs. You could use gravel,so long as you have edging to keep it in place. We have Tarmac for the car standing areas. Never looks anything other than smart and stains are not visible. Or use a dark grey paving slabs of different sizes. Laying slabs is time consuming and they break if not level. Tarmac can be less work as a contractor will do it, and very durable. Anything is better than concrete though!

I love brick drives, but I think they're expensive to have laid. But lovely. I don't know how hard wearing they are though? Lots of people have had them recently round us, but we are skint so will have to wait a couple of years to see how they weather and save up to replace our crazy paving (OH YES) drive. We had an oil leak on the shared tarmac bit and it has stained though, but it's very very old knackered tarmac and our builder said we could always use tarmac paint if it really bothered us.

thanks for your ideas - that's given me plenty to think about and research

What about weed suppressant membrane then gravel on top of the concrete? Brick drives seem to have a lot of weeds in between those brick gaps.

How about grasscrete?

www.houzz.com/grasscrete

We have a really chunky gravel called Cotswold chippings. It has all bound together so doesn't go anywhere. Was fairly cheap and quick to lay!