New Surface for the Driveway

We have a large detached garage within our backyard, which is accessed through a back alley. It can be tricky to maneuver into the driveway, so we mostly park our cars in the street out front, as do most of our neighbors (there's plenty of room). The plus side of this set-up is that having the driveway as part of the backyard gives us some extra space. The down-side is we have a lot of concrete-- great for bouncing balls and riding trikes, but obviously not so great for tender little knees landing on it.

We needed a solution that left the concrete in place (so we still have an accessible garage if we ever need to use it) but offered a softer, less abrasive surface for the kids, and looked better than a drab concrete mass.

We also liked the idea of the kids still being able to use the space for bouncing balls and riding trikes and scooters around. After much research, we decided on sport court tiles. They're great for a driveway because you can even park on them if need be. Since we already had the concrete slab, this was an easy diy project. It just took a few hours to cover around 700 square feet. (We
didn't quite have room for a four square court, so we had to settle for two.)

We ordered the tiles from Versacourt at around $2 a tile, which is a little steep as a temporary fix. However, we're hoping this solution will grow with the kids. It's really made for basketball, so when the kids get a little bigger I envision them playing some hoops out back, or maybe they'll hone their skateboarding tricks on a half-pipe. Regardless, it looks better than an uninviting expanse of gray concrete.