What to do with long walkway from the driveway?

Our garage door is at the end of the house with the driveway running straight to the garage door. The driveway confuses our guests. Most people will go to the back door of the house. The front walkway has stepping stones, but most people don't realize that is the way to the front door. It's a basic ranch style house, one level on three acres. How can we make the front of the house more inviting?

You have such a nice large parcel that you have a few options to bring people to the front door and show off the front of the house as folks drive up to it.

Two options are a circle or "U" shaped drive. With these driveways, you would bring them as close to the front door as looks the best in your situation. I have done them as close as 10' from the house to about 20'. The sidewalk then would come straight out from the front steps to the driveway. Be sure to make the driveway at least 18' wide in front of the steps to allow cars to pass one another easily.

The option that would cost the least would be to pull two parking places off the driveway to the garage. You would locate them at a place that gives the visitor a nice view of the house. The depth of the parking space needs to be 18' and a very comfortable width is 10'. Have the sidewalk gently wind from the front steps to the center of the parking area. Planting can then be done around this parking area to integrate it with the rest of the landscape.

For the sidewalk, use a good strong material that is easy to walk on and your visitors can easily notice. A good material is concrete or brick pavers. They can be dry laid on a compacted granite dust base to keep the installation costs reasonable. These types of sidewalk are not difficult to keep clean and are beautiful.

I hope this information helps! thanks so much for your question.

All the best,

Nancy