It is good planning to have your driveway and walkway done at the same time. A nice complement to your home could be a curved, neutral (tan) colored walkway with brick colored border and matching border on the driveway to follow through. Cambridge has a nice line of pavers on their website where you can view the different patterns and colors. You can also do a neutral flagstone walkway and border the driveway with a paver to match. It is easier to do everything at once and more cost effective.

Whatever material you choose, one of the biggest mistakes people make when putting in walks is to lay them out in a way that leaves them with a 3 foot strip of earth between the walk and the foundation. It ends up being too small for shrubs or anything but the puniest looking perennial planting. Think about what you want around the driveway and walk and leave enough space. A lot easier to avoid the problem than to fix it or live with it later.

Also, make it at least 4 feet wide.

I really think you would find it helpful to review this recent posting linked below.

Also, it would be helpful to know where your driveway is planned to be and where you plan for guests to park.

IronBelly

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:7286}}

I agree that your walkway should be wide and away from the house. I'd make it 5feet, wide enough for two to walk abreast. And a wider gathering area where people will congregate near the door.

Also, make sure it starts well away from where cars can park and that your drive is wide enough that one can get around a car parked in the middle of it to the front walk and not step into the lawn or beds.

I am not a landscaper, but we had our walks redone this summer (along with other work) and I love the results. See if this is similar to what you want.

Too bad the hose and the pile of leaves mess up the picture....

{{gwi:7289}}

I should add that, although there is variation in the color of the pavers, some of the very dark is simply because they are wet.

Ironbelly when I clicked on your link, all I got was a smiley. Covenantbuilders may have already found this thread but I'll put the link below just in case.

Here is a link that might be useful: When the garage doesn't face the front

If this forum had a FAQ page I am sure it would need a section about creating a path for a house with a side entry garage. I have always liked the look of such a layout, but I can see where it traded the "welcome to my garage" problem for the "where the heck is the front door" problem.

I have posted the link below before. It is a project from the Renegade Gardener site (go to www.renegadegardener.com to get the full site with fames). Some of the details of the project are not my style, but the article points out a lot of the fundamentals of such a project...deep planting beds, wide and welcoming path, clear definition of the main entrance, etc.

Prairie...have you been holding out on us? I don't recall seeing a picture of this project before. It looks nice and it is very welcoming!

- Brent

Here is a link that might be useful: Renegade Gardener Project

Thank you Brent! No, not intentionally (holding out on you). Just too busy to write a long explanation of the project. Perhaps I can get around to it this weekend as a separate thread. This arose from our concerns over flooding (I'll find and link that thread).

Also, I don't consider even this project completely finished. I desperately want new pillars on the porch (that will be this spring) and a new front door. I am scared this forum will be critical of our non-matching bricks and pavers (!!). The flower beds were only just planted when this was taken, I want to see how they do this spring. Etc. But I will start a different thread so that I don't hi-jack this one (although I'm not sure the OP is still around).

Thanks to all for the input. Brent in nova - really liked the article from Renegade Gardner. The layout is gorgeous and will fit with my house (although not as grand).

Talked to a landscaper this morning and are mulling over possible drainage issues now. Also, still trying to talk DH into brick/stone. He just wants to get it done by closing (in three weeks).

I have problems with that Renegade Gardener article...

While there are some things to be gleaned from it, the thrust of the article deals not with design but rather ways to conceal the lack there of. The siting of the house, layout of the approach and lack of consideration for guests - all design blunders - creates the situation: "Where the heck is the front door?" Following this logic, I guess if I had a farm house, I would have the driveway direct my guests to the machine shed.

If your guests are confused, it is because of poor design and lack of forethought. Let's be honest here... forcing guests to walk 85 feet just to get to the front door is stupid and rude.

IronBelly

IB: I am curious to what your solution to the general problem would be. I have never lived in a house with a side entry garage, but they seem to be the current trend. I have to guess that the reason for these types of garages is to move the "big ugly" garage door and driveway out of view. The problem being that for many homes guest parking is also in the driveway so it moves that further away from the front door as well. I appreciate the idea of the "hammer head" parking spaces but for a typical lot that means taking up a third of the front lawn with a concrete slab.

- Brent

We had a very long run from the garage to the front door.
The original walk was max 3' wide and ran along the house.
Very unattractive. The new walk is 5' wide and 60' long
and there's no mistaking where to find the front door.

{{gwi:7291}}

Brent,

This is an excellent question that has many answers. One needs to look no further than directly above in this thread to the posting of the photo by Prairie Love to garner an answer.

It is always a little disconcerting to me that this is a forum where we have the opportunity to explore the issues of designing landscapes. Yet, just by the realities of the inescapable human element, we spend an inordinate amount of time not discussing design per se but rather the all-too-frequent real life situation of: I inherited this mucked-up mess... Now what do I do?

Quoting Thomas Church, "Landscaping is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it." If you are familiar with my writings over the years, you will recognize that I encourage people to use their minds. I really do have an abiding faith that the average person is more than up to the task of designing a pleasantly functional landscape if a bit of time is devoted to both study and thought. Sure abilities and results will vary. Joe and Jolene Average may never have the skill set to handle complicated, high-end projects. However, it is easily within Joe and Jolene AverageÂs abilities to avoid the common design blunders that we repeated time and time again on this very forum. If they need some further inspiration, they should not be afraid to consult a pro.

As a society, we have largely abdicated our vital role in the decision-making processes of residential living. We have stood by on the sidelines, refusing to get involved until after the fact. Much of the siting and design decisions have been sloughed off to some contractor whose skills lay in pounding nails. When things really get bad, government gets involved and ordains codes where Âone size fits allÂ.

All that one really has to do is go on some of the model home tours and you will quickly and objectively begin sort the wheat from the chaff. I suggest not doing this when you are actually in need of a house. Remove the pressure of time constraints. This exercise is best undertaken as research, not selection. Pretty soon you will find yourself asking; ÂWhy in the world did they do that? Or; ÂIf they would have only done it this way, then You soon begin to see what works smoothly and what doesnÂt. Magically, good design will rise to the surface like cream in the old milk can.

As I have already stated, Brent, there are many answers to your question. Of course, each of those answers is site specific. Quite frankly, for many of the existing homes already mucked up, there remains no cost effective solution at this time. Throw enough money at it and most any problem can be made to go away. However, the law of diminishing returns soon kicks in. Problems are often cheaply avoided but can quickly become prohibitively expensive after the fact. For example, just down the block from me, a new home is going up on a corner lot that is almost of mirror image of my lot. My wife and I settled for nothing less than a corner lot. It is the only way to get away from the ÂWelcome to my garage" look with the typically small lots available today. Here was a perfect opportunity. The spec contractor just slapped the garage on the front of the house out of habit. The cost of the house would not have been increased a single cent to implement this bit of design forethought. It is too late now!

IronBelly
...Nice job, Linlee.

Thank you.

IB: I agree with you 100%..."Nice job, Linlee" You need to post more often. I see a lot of nice things in the picture your posted. I have to assume that the house in the picture is not yours...otherwise that would be a VERY long run.

I agree that the house on the Renegade Gardener site is a bit extreme because it is a very long walk to the front entrance. They probably could have designed the house with the lot in mind.

Back to the original poster...would a parking area that was out toward the front of the house be a good idea? Maybe just in front of the garage?

- Brent

Linlee, the walkway is beautiful. I do have a question though - you say it is 60' long. What happens in winter? Do your guests have to walk the 60' pathway to get to your front door or is there an alternative way to approach?

One needs to look no further than directly above in this thread to the posting of the photo by Prairie Love to garner an answer.
Um, I think that is a compliment...I'll take it that way! The interesting thing is that - despite all our efforts to try to make the front door VERY obvious - people still come to the driveway at the side and enter our house through the garage. In some cases it's because they are close friends, they got used to coming to the house that way so they still do - or they might be bringing a dog, or muddy feet, or some other reason that the garage makes more sense. But still, it is very frustrating to me that people rarely come to our front door.

"But still, it is very frustrating to me that people rarely come to our front door."

Without seeing a picture of the house in the context of the surrounding neighborhood, I'd have to say it's not because it's not noticeable; in fact, it's absolutely lovely. Maybe some brainstorming would help pinpoint what's going on. Is that the garage on the left hand side of the picture, with the driveway coming up from the same direction as the walkway, or does it face the side like the OP's home? How long is the walkway from where people have to park to the porch? Maybe people just aren't comfortable parking on the street in front of the house. Is the asphalt part of your driveway, a parking area, or a paved road? (I'm just assuming you live on a paved road) Is there a bar ditch or some other perceived difficulty people would have to walk beside as they go around their car to get to the walkway?

How fast are vehicles usually travelling by? Is there plenty of room for two lanes of traffic to get around a parked car and still have room to open the doors on the traffic side? I don't see one in the picture, so I'm wondering where your mailbox is in relation to the house. Alot of people use whatever entrance is nearest the mailbox, figuring that's the one the family uses most. If your mailbox is actually on the property (as opposed to being clustered half way down the road with the neighbors)is it in front, or on the driveway side?

I suppose if there's no real reason why people don't use the front door, you could always start parking at the end of the driveway and keeping the garage door shut; that would discourage casual visitors from pulling right up to the house.

littledog those are all good questions, and I am not ignoring your generous help. I am swamped at work right now, and just have not had time to respond in full. I will, in time, start my own thread and address these questions and others. For the moment, something that did not come across in my picture is that we live in the country. The gravel you see is part of our circular drive in front of the house, so there is not a concern with other cars on the street. And our mailbox is half a mile away !!

Actually, I'm somewhat thinking it may be partly the "country" mentality - everyone is too informal to come to the front door.

Anyway, thank you for thinking about my issue, and I do promise to post at a later date.