Will I regret a gravel driveway?

[Becauseyouaskednicely]

This is my house. I have a tarmac driveway and then paving slabs closer to the house. It’s all very tired looking and needs sprucing. I plan to create a flower bed the whole width of the downstairs window and paint the side gate black. Also need to tidy up the front garden. I would looove to add gravel to the tarmac and paving slabs closer - I think it looks so lovely and almost every other house on my street has gravel. I would do this myself using gravel grids as I’m on a budget. But I’m worried I’ll regret it! Can’t afford to otherwise re-do the drive. So please let me have your thoughts:

1. Option 1 - cover the tarmac and paving slabs with gravel.
2. Option 2 - jet wash the paving slabs and use tarmac refresher paint on the gravel but otherwise leave as is, you will regret the gravel.

imho, gravel driveways are nearly all hideous as well as often impractical.
Your tarmac looks fine imho, btw.
I lived 19 yrs in a town where almost everyone has gravel, btw, so it's actually my 'norm' !!
Go for block paving if your budget ever stretches. Can look so so nice.

We have a gravel driveway firstly because it was already gravel when we bought the house, but when we looked into alternatives it was going to be an absolute fortune. I would much rather have had tarmac but it was ridiculously expensive.

I don’t think it’ll be as cheap as you think for gravel. We had to relay all the gravel last year after the heavy machinery for building our extension had crushed all the gravel into the earth and it cost us £3,500. 🙈 Was not a cost we had factored into our extension budget.