Driveway

Towards the end of last year we realised that our driveway from the gates to the house would be a problem for us in the winter. Once it rained the earth here turns quite sticky and car wheels very quickly turn double their normal size as they gather up a coat of mud. We needed to put down a hard surface to stop everything turning into a complete mess.

Laying concrete or paving might have been a problem as there could be some settlement where lots of digging had taken place during the house building. So to get us through the winter we bought a lorry load of gravel to spread over the drive and also as a path around the house. Around the house was also important as water running off the roof (no, we don’t have guttering) causes the red earth to splash up the house walls anything up to a metre high. Vaggelis looked at the pile of gravel when the lorry delivered it and thought it would take a day to move it and level it out. We rolled up our sleeves and in about 2 hours had the whole thing done.

That has worked very well, the car only collected mud from the track outside our gates and house didn’t get its red gaiter.

As the rains came to an end we started planning what we wanted to do with the drive, what shape we wanted and most important what materials to use. First we considered the flat stone that has been used for the steps and areas out side out door. This cream and orange coloured stone complements the stonework for the house. It’s quite an expensive stone, almost twice the cost of the grey/green stone, and because of the way it breaks you have a wastage factor of about 20%.

Next we saw some roadways and drives made from concrete that is patterned with a stamp as it is laid. At first we thought that would be a lot cheaper and looked quite attractive, then we saw a driveway from which most of the colouring had leached out.

After a chat with one of the local ‘builders merchants’ who gave us a direct price for materials and recommended someone to lay the flat stone at a fixed price per square metre we found that this was almost the same price as the concrete stamp. So we have made the decision and the work on the driveway is now in progress. In a few days all should be finished, that’s if the spell of unsettled weather that we now have gives them the chance to do so.