Where we were, and where we're at

Well, while the interior of the house has been completed for a while (you'll see the results in the August issue of Canadian House & Home!), the exterior of the house has been somewhat of a head-scratching work in progress. That first shot below shows the house in all its grimy pink curtained glory when we first bought it, the second, after the fantastic energy-efficient new Jeld-Wen windows went in during the midst of the reno (check out more reno snapshots here). The thing is, the driveway still looks pretty much the same, complete with tired asphalt and broken concrete.

So now I'm on a mission to get it looking at least passably attractive, though the main issue is the mammoth size. It's 20' x 30' with parking for 3 cars. Seriously. I'd been noodling around materials and decided initially on simple and modern exposed aggregate concrete (take a look here), and got a couple of quotes. Errr, one arrived at an eye-watering $16,000. So now we're Plan B-ing it and looking at different options. Oh, and did I mention I want to get this done in the next couple of weeks? Wish me luck.