Is it going to cost thousands to fix my drive?

[SteveBuscemisRheumyEye]

We bought our house not long ago, and the previous owner had this horrible poured concrete (?) drive and area in the garden. I really hate it - it's so ugly. Would it cost loads to get rid of it? Do I need a builder? Feels like a major job!

It would need to be broken up and removed before putting whatever you want down which is a big job.

Your path looks like it's falling down on one side too.

It’s a nightmare to get rid of. We had a concrete parking apron like this in our back garden. We had a patio laid over the top of it rather than trying to dig it out. Might that be a possibility, for parts of it at least?

This is common in mid century houses. I can't see the style of your house, but power washed and some sympathetic planting will work wonders, tends to be in keeping to the house style and it's better for the environment to keep it than to get rid and replace with more hard paving.

This is the front of the house

I stand corrected! I think a gravel drive would suit your house though. If you are relatively handy I would hire the tools and try to lift it yourself.

We just had concrete stepping stones removed. (Looked lovely but wrong location!) cost us £600 including the skip. It will need builders with drilling tools and a skip (or two). If you hate it, better to take it off and decorate the way you like than live with ugly/wrong things.

The house is on a hill and the drive is quite steep. Can you have gravel on an incline??

You could have a resin/gravel driveway on a slope?

Maybe you could have those gravel mats to stop it all just rolling down the hill.

duramat.co.uk/product/durapark-black/?gclid=CjwKCAjwj6SEBhAOEiwAvFRuKH6UfjBtWT6FU1rEcpXwQwP2XmMJoDzzeB-v51j371RNsXpm8QFkiRoCrQ8QAvD_BwE

You can hire the tools to break concrete yourself but it will be a hard slog, depend on precious your time as to whether you want to pay someone else to do it.

@Didicat DH is Polish and would consider it outrageous to hire someone else to do it 😜

What about the back garden. It's so horrible there, too.

Don't get a gravel driveway! We had that at our last house and it gets everywhere - including in the house and in the car.

If the concrete is smooth and flat, you could maybe put resin over it? That would be cheaper and easier than any solution that involves digging up the concrete.

Thinking about it, it's the path I hate the most. The driveway I can cope with but the path is so so ugly

DH is Polish and would consider it outrageous to hire someone else to do it 😜

OK, no problem then.

It's a relatively simple job to remove the concrete. All you need to do is to buy a concrete breaker - they typically cost £150-200 - and do it yourself (or himself!).

For example:-

www.toolstation.com/search?q=concrete%20breaker

Here is a youtube video of a channel I subscribe to on youtube who are renovating their old home. This is a video of him breaking up and removing an old concrete path similar to yours:-

💪

Thinking about it, it's the path I hate the most.

Here's another video of him putting in stone pavers on their path that looks great and I (well, actually DH) copied:-

And this is a timelapse showing everything (including removing the concrete):-

Hope this helps or provides some inspiration!

Personally for the path I would get some decent edging (maybe a terracotta rope edge in keeping with the colour of your brickwork) and then tile in between the edges, on top of the concrete.

The advantage you have with all of the existing concrete on your drive and patio is that it does provide a really good solid base to put things on top of - whether it's something like tiles in the garden or paving or resin bound gravel for the drive.

Just from the photos, it looks like the concrete is still in good shape, it is just dingy and not your preferred style.

Removing it is a big job and I’m always hesitant to replace things that are still functional. It just feels wasteful to me of both resources and money. Of course that leaves me hoping things break sometimes.

I would consider just washing it. Google will help here but I don’t believe it’s a difficult job and if you need a power washer you can rent them cheaply.

I would actually build up the bed between the drive and the walk and then do some greenery in there. It should be level with the path.

@Pinkpaisley yes, maybe that would help! What would you build it up with? Soil?