Three car garage driveway designs

[SB440R/T]

What do you have as far as how it goes to the doors? The wife does not want it all straight out of all three bays. The GC originally spoke about bringing it to a single, but we think that is way too narrow. Maybe we didn't understand what he is saying. So not a lot of options, but better to bring the curve to one side or the center? We are 50 feet off the front of the property line. Thoughts?

 

[rburke65]

In this case, the wider the better, otherwise if you have a car parked in the drive, no one else can get in or out.

 

[gregtwojeeps]

How much blank space will be between the overhead garage doors ? If it is a couple of feet, you could break up the "interstate" look by putting some semi-circle landscape wells between the doors to break up the view of the super slab. jmo

 

[ripperd]

our 3 car garage driveway is full width. We are probably about 40 feet off the street. I wouldn't do it any other way. Some of our neighbors have it narrow down to 2 but that makes driveway storage and parking very inconvenient. I'd only neck it down to 2 or one lane if it was 80+ feet long.

 

[jmiller_2308]

I had three across narrowed to one lane over 100 feet and the parking issue truly sucked. Whenever we had guests over, a single person in the driveway made it so nobody else could get in or out.

To fix it I added another garage and extended across the equivalent of 6 doors, brought the area about the distance 50 feet from the garage to a full 3 doors width and then narrowed again to the opening but only after adding an additional 3 feet to that opening.

Narrow at the road makes it a little less parking lot like and the fact that the garage addition angles to make the area more of a courtyard makes it not feel too excessive..

 

[SB440R/T]

This is the front elevation of the house, the garage is not to scale because I added about 15 feet to the size of it. We only have two cars, so we would fit 5 guest cars with ours in the garage, but the ones up front are not leaving early, so I see the point.

 

[SB440R/T]

This is a version of the house previously built before, but not a driveway we can build as we are straight onto the road.

 

[SB440R/T]

You need to change that door to match the prairie windows in your house.

You talking about the drawing?

 

[SB440R/T]

our 3 car garage driveway is full width. We are probably about 40 feet off the street. I wouldn't do it any other way. Some of our neighbors have it narrow down to 2 but that makes driveway storage and parking very inconvenient. I'd only neck it down to 2 or one lane if it was 80+ feet long.

Yea, we chose to keep the space in the backyard and not up front. We thought 50 feet would be plenty. The neighborhood has trailer parking so I don't need the space in the driveway.

 

[SB440R/T]

Something like this seems ok to me, not to narrow, but still not a big block. What would you guess this length would be?

 

[BDT/NWMN]

Full width plus adjoining sidewalk.. Add an extra funnel shape at the curb.. Give colored concrete and scroll line detail some thought..

 

[SB440R/T]

Full width plus adjoining sidewalk.. Add an extra funnel shape at the curb.. Give colored concrete and scroll line detail some thought..

Will look some of those options, thanks.

 

[JOHN 86GT]

If your garage is 35 ft wide , I would go that wide in front of garage and taper back to 18 feet .

My driveway is 18 ft for first 100 feet and then around 36x36 in front of side entrance garage . If you invite 3 guests over , they still park in the road


Due to length of my driveway , people never park side by side , and looks like a little air strip , I would probably would subtract a few feet from width and add it to area in front of garage . (way more useful ) if I had to do over .

My old house had front entrance garage and it was 3 wide at garage and was about 18 wide but only about 30 feet to side walk . You could fit 3 wide in front and two in rear .

My neighbor only went 16 wide and when you got out of your car , you were stepping on his lawn or snow . (not wide enough )

 

[SB440R/T]

If your garage is 35 ft wide , I would go that wide in front of garage and taper back to 18 feet .

My driveway is 18 ft for first 100 feet and then around 36x36 in front of side entrance garage . If you invite 3 guests over , they still park in the road


Due to length of my driveway , people never park side by side , and looks like a little air strip , I would probably would subtract a few feet from width and add it to area in front of garage . (way more useful ) if I had to do over .

My old house had front entrance garage and it was 3 wide at garage and was about 18 wide but only about 30 feet to side walk . You could fit 3 wide in front and two in rear .

My neighbor only went 16 wide and when you got out of your car , you were stepping on his lawn or snow . (not wide enough )

I might go slightly larger than 18, maybe about 22-25 feet. We don't have sidewalks, which I really like.

 

[JOHN 86GT]

You can rope it out with twine or garden hose to see what works best for you .

I wish I had a little more area in front of my garage because I often store my 6 x 10 untility trailer there ( against the wishes of HOA )

 

[ez-duzit]

Something like this...

This is , at least, practical. But a giant mass of poured concrete will always look like concrete.

Better is to add the use of pavers, or some such other, especially if they are laid in an interesting and imaginative pattern.

 

[SB440R/T]

This is , at least, practical. But a giant mass of poured concrete will always look like concrete.

Better is to add the use of pavers, or some such other, especially if they are laid in an interesting and imaginative pattern.

Yea, I also saw some stamped concrete that looked really nice. Might look at brick pavers to break up the pads. I think that looks really nice too.

 

[ez-duzit]

If you must use concrete, at least do some aggregate, to split up all that mass.

 

[JOHN 86GT]

Not sure how much of any snow you get but you have to be careful with stamped concrete and full size plows or metal skis on snowblowers and it has to be sealed every few years .
(and 4 times price of concrete ) But does look nice

 

[SB440R/T]

Not sure how much of any snow you get but you have to be careful with stamped concrete and full size plows or metal skis on snowblowers and it has to be sealed every few years .
(and 4 times price of concrete ) But does look nice

Well you just ruined that. Not because of the snow, but because of the cost. We get snow a couple times a year, but nothing super crazy.

 

[James-W]

This is , at least, practical. But a giant mass of poured concrete will always look like concrete.

Better is to add the use of pavers, or some such other, especially if they are laid in an interesting and imaginative pattern.

I would have made the driveway the same width all the way to the road. If you don't want it to look like concrete, have it stamped and color added to make it look like brick, or something similar.

 

[Viper98912]

Something like this seems ok to me, not to narrow, but still not a big block. What would you guess this length would be?

I have something like this, but the curve is closer to the house. A complete PITA and it's extremely difficult to easily get a car in and out of the house without going over the grass. Not to mention the genius who put a tree right next to the curve. If you do this, I definitely recommend putting the curve as close to the road as possible.

Second, I did recently see a house with a three car full slab to the road. Agree, way too much width of concrete. As others have suggested, definitely split up the concrete with some nice pavers and it'll look good full width.

 

[Dustball]

Considering how short your driveway will be, I think a full width concrete driveway with a stamped borders and a stamped medallion in the center would look pretty nice.

To give you an idea-

 

[Dustball]

Here's another idea-

 

[rsanter]

How about no concrete?
Use TT24 tuff tracks grass road pavers.
Plate compact the base material.
Lay the grids down and plant grass in them
Then you can drive over them without compacting the fill and killing the grass

Bob

 

[SB440R/T]

Here's another idea-

I really like something like this. Thanks.

 

[ez-duzit]

I really like something like this. Thanks.

Sadly this treatment simply dominates the house and becomes an unimaginative distraction.