A Variety of Pavers for Hardscaping Inspiration
When it comes to paving your driveway, designing your patio, or even considering the walkway to your home pavers are a very important part of that equation. How do you decide what pattern you want, or whether to start with your driveway vs your patio, or even worse what material do you use?
There are a lot of choices to make in this process and there are a lot materials to choose from when it comes to hardscaping. Today we are going to cover a few to give you a better idea of the pros and cons of various options.
Marble
Marble is a form of limestone typically used in sculpting and as a building material due to its smoothness and bold bright color.
Pros:
- Very clean smooth aesthetic
- Very durable, and will last ages.
- Increase home value
Cons:
- Can be scratched
- Can stain
- Retains heat
Concrete:
Concrete is an ideal material for roadways due to its durability and strength compared to asphalt. Due to the low cost of the materials used to make
concrete it is a good alternative to brick.
Pros:
- Very durable to heavy traffic
- Easily made into a variety of shapes and sizes
- Low Cost
Cons:
- Needs to be sealed
- Not good in extreme temperature changes (Can lead to cracking)
Bluestone
In American bluestone is a feldspathic sandstone, and is typically sourced from
quarries around Pennsylvania and New York.
Pros:
- Durable
- Beautiful blue color
- Great as an accent with other materials
Cons:
- Expensive
Clay
Bricks were once a popular road surface in urban areas, but fell out of fashion
due to their high cost of maintenance.
Pros:
- Possible to make very unique patterns with the layout
- Easy to make a variety of colors and shapes
- Ideal alternative to concrete
Cons:
They tend to chip and crack, and require maintenance in high traffic areas such as roads, or driveways.
Flagstone:
Another form of sandstone but is mostly sedimentary rock. This type of stone is
sourced from places like Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Pros:
- Always a unique pattern since it is natural stone
More durable than concrete
Cons:
- Expensive
- Limited to use in patios, and walkways. It is too varied and thin to be used in driveways.
Cobblestone:
Cobblestone is a natural building material that was at one point used for roadways due to its durability, and the fact that it didn’t produce ruts like dirt
roads.
Pros:
- Low maintenance
- Strong and durable
Cons:
- Expensive
- Takes time to layout the patterns
While these are not all the options you can choose from, these will help give you an idea of the wide variety of options that exist to help improve your current hardscaping. These types of improvements not only help improve the visual impact of your driveway or backyard, but can also lead to increasing the value of your home.
If you need help planning out your next hardscaping project feel free to reach out or check out some of our existing work!