Driveway at last! And arched windows...

After living in the house for over a year, we've finally got a driveway!!! We went with Boral Salt and Pepper and exposed aggregate and got the plinth and path around the front of the house done as well. We are so glad we chose a great concreter this time. We still need to acid wash the bricks at the front, paint the plastic part of the downpipes, and are thinking of sealing the exposed aggregate. Has anyone had this done before? What are your thoughts? Is it worth it?

Remember this post? Well, after all we ended up going with this instead:

Even though in my pictures the difference in concrete doesn't look like much, in reality, we would have been left with a tiny grass patch had we gone with the option I had originally decided on. It was a difficult decision, because I wanted matching hedges AND as much grass as possible, so I left it up to MrB to make the final call. I don't like what I've been left with, but I am glad that I wasn't the one who made the final decision. Strange, I know...

Thank you to all who provided feedback on my Arched Windows in Modern/Traditional homes post! If anyone missed it, I'd love to hear your feedback too.

Here it is:

The exterior of our home is very traditional, but the interior is a mix of modern and traditional. We've got a fairly modern (glass balustrade) staircase and a contemporary kitchen and bathrooms ... However, none of the finishes are ultra modern, and are in my opinion fairly traditional/timeless. Eg. white kitchen, hardwood flooring, grey stone look tiles etc.

Do you think we should make the three arched windows a feature on the inside, or should we cover them ? Two of them are in bedrooms, and one is in the open space where the staircase is ... I've always thought that arched windows look wrong in contemporary spaces, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

Our ensuite, facade & kitchen

B

Should we tile our portico?

Thank you all for your comments on my Foundation Stuff Up post. We will roll the exposed aggregate from driveway height to portico height over the width of the garage brick pier.

But now the question is. Should we tile the portico? The finish of the concrete is pretty poor so we need to do something, just not sure what ...

The pathway from the portico to the street/gate will most probably be in the form of large pavers.

The front doors will be painted black.

Question number 2:
How do we cover up the "stuff up" or "extra" slab from my previous post?

Here is the stuff up, the extra slab which shouldn't have been there... MrB removed some of it in order to accommodate the downpipe ... but we can't have all of it removed because there are structural steel rods running through it as you can see below... 

This is the other side, there is "extra" slab here as well, but MrB trimmed a fair bit of it ...

In the pic below you can see a thin black line in between the first row of bricks and mortar. That's the damp proof barrier. You can only just see it... In some spots you can't even see it...

B

Foundation stuff up. What now?

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but our original concretor was a bit of a monkey. In a few spots he made the slab wider than it should have been, meaning that it now sticks out. MrB has had to cut the concrete in order to make it possible for the storm water pipe to go down as opposed to stick out over the concrete...

Another thing (although this one was specified by our engineer) is that our garage is NOT lowered, meaning that it is on the same level as the rest of the house... The portico is lower than the rest by a row of bricks...and it follows the line of the extra concrete sticking out....

Now. We want a 1m wide concrete path around the perimeter of the front of the house (the back and sides have already been done). But connecting a path around to the driveway now becomes a problem, because the driveway will be higher by a row of bricks!

The options we've been able to figure out are: to have a step where the two meet, or to gradually slope the concrete down to the portico level. To me a step seems like a bit of a hazard, and the "gradual" slope seems difficult to get right there is a high possibility that it will look ugly :(

Can you think of another solution? Hopefully a safe and not so ugly one?

If it makes any difference, our home is steel frame.

  

B