Now that the book series is complete, I’ve had more free time to do stuff around the house. A project we put off for far too long was the repair and/or replacement of our driveway apron. For those of you not in the know, the apron is technically part of the driveway and it is what connects the driveway proper to the street. Our lovely city, the city to which we pay such exorbitant property taxes toward in order for our kids to go to a public ‘private’ school, has decreed that driveway aprons and sidewalks are the homeowner’s responsibility to repair. That is unless of course the city is working in their right of way and trashes your apron or sidewalk. In which case, the city is responsible.

But I digress…

Out of sheer morbid curiosity, we got some estimates for a professional to just replace the entire thing. The most memorable estimate was ~ $4000!! That was absolutely ridiculous in our eyes.

Balking at that BS, we then began viewing the job as a repair job. Could we repair the apron instead of replacing it? Well, according to YouTube, it seemed pretty straight forward. Besides, in this instance, you can’t really screw up concrete. Some of these cracks, holes, and crevices were pretty substantial.

The above images were what we were dealing with. Our neighbor across the street had repaired his and I’m a pretty handy guy. So, we figured, why not.

With the task in hand, we began the process of cleaning out each area to be addressed. I hit it with the blower, the hose, and a broom. While that was drying, I went to the hardware store and literally spent $15 on two 60# bags of Quikrete and one bottle of the bonding agent. With the wife looking on in a supervisory capacity, I mixed small batches of concrete and dumped them in each hole until full. Then I stopped her shovel leaning and had her spread the concrete throughout. with a trowel. I even taught her how to float the ‘concrete’. Here’s what it ended up looking like:

So, there you have it. We literally saved ourselves $3985 by doing a little research, having a can-do attitude, losing the fear of failure, and just working the problem until we found a solution. Don’t be so quick to cut a check and let someone else solve your problem. See if you can’t fix or resolve the issue for less money by sacrificing just a little time and some elbow grease.