“Dull to Divine” – Creative driveway ideas in Prosper, TX
Just because something is functional that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. This Prosper, TX home had it all – curb appeal, stunning architectural features, and lush landscaping, and a very long driveway.
It was obvious that they had paid a great deal of attention to details with all the other aspects of the home, the one thing that was sticking out was the very gray concrete driveway and a patio in the back. They gave us a call and we were able to provide our homeowners with several creative driveway ideas to help tie it back in with the rest of the house. They finally settled on applying an acid stain to transform the bland concrete into something a lot more eye catching.
This was a large driveway and the patio in the back wasn’t small potatoes either so we had to come up with a game plan that would allow us to execute their driveway ideas as quickly as possible. What were the possible pitfalls we were facing?
First was the size, we had more than 2,000 square feet to stain. Second was the lay of the land, we had a combination of flat and sloped areas, and third was timing, this ties in directly with the first point, we’ll elaborate directly.
Let’s tackle the second point first. One of the factors we have to take into account when we are proposing driveway ideas to a client is how things are laid out. Sloped or vertical surfaces need a different application technique from horizontal. Acid staining is unforgiving, if we spray it too heavy, it will run and burn permanent marks in the concrete that are almost impossible to remove. The solution is to make adjustments to reduce the amount of acid going down and to move quickly so that it won’t have time to build up.
Back to the previous points, timing is pretty critical with any acid staining job, but so much more when a driveway ideas project is as large as this one was. Acid staining is a reactive process and it will continue to react the longer it remains wet while lying on the concrete surface, creating a darker color. Ok, so how does this affect anything?
Simple, if you have a long, tree-lined driveway and the part of it is in the shade and the other in direct sunlight, well, there can be a lot of color variations throughout; and keep in mind that the shadows will move during the application, further complicating things.
We’ll never forget a time when we did a job where the hot summer sun ended up throwing a hard roof line shadow on a patio we were staining. We didn’t think much of it until we stepped back and clearly saw a line dividing a darker, in the shade portion from a lighter, in the sun, area. Obviously we learned our lesson, timing is everything, and it didn’t happen in this driveway ideas project; in fact, everything came out just beautifully.
