Location: Oxenford
Project Size: 160sqm
New concrete pathway up side of house in plain grey, rear concrete shed base installed, then full resurfacing of rear entertaining area and front driveway.
Full Grind Back
Base: Modified White to remove old deep stencil design
Main: Coal
Borders / Diamonds: Oatmeal
Flecking: Oatmeal
Location: Labrador
Project Size: 150sqm
Plain concrete extension of the existing driveway along with the rear patio section, then full concrete resurfacing both front and back to match the recently renovated black / white style of our clients home.
Blanket colour of Graphite with a Natural Fleck throughout.
Location: Jacobs Well
Project Size: 140sqm
New home build at Jacobs well. Concrete poured for tile base around pool area, side path and front driveway was poured and then resurfaced with a solid, flecked colour with borders and border inserts at joints. One of my favourite simple designs that breaks the space up really nicely.
Base Colour: White
Main Colour: Natural
Border / Inserts: Blue Mountain
Flecking: White / Blue Mountain 8mm
Always a big thank you to our clients for your business, all the best with your lovely new home.
Location: Mudgereeba
Project Size: 54sqm
Relatively small little resurfacing project down here at Mudgereeba. Our lovely clients here just had their patio extended and some new concrete installed leading to the clothes line. We then attended and completed a full resurface with the following design.
Base Colour: White
Main Colour: Fossil
Flecking: White / Truffle
700mm Tile Pattern
Thank you again to our clients and all the best for Xmas and the New Year.
Location: Carrara Markets
Project Size: 160sqm
Back to the Markets we shall go! We haven’t been back here for a while now, the Markets have been working on other areas on refurbishment in the mean time, but we returned last week with a lovely little slab for a new attraction they have in plans.
I’m not going to leak exactly what it is, but it’s something the kids will love and to be fair, something I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else in Qld.
As always with the Markets, we are working with existing surfaces and structures trying to make everything blend and work in with each other. Dave did a wonderful job this time guiding the machines to get the site level while we were away on another site, leaving us an easy (for a change), installation.
Working on roughly 125mm of concrete throughout, with a level slab, typical steel reinforcing and a very light brush finish to allow for no slipping if it gets wet.
The enclosure however will be completely built in from now on, getting everything ready for the new attraction.
I’m not sure exactly when the open date will be, but keep an eye on if you’re in the area, it’s certainly something I’ll be taking my daughter to.
Thanks for you on going work and support Carrara Markets, was a pleasure as always.
Location: Maudsland
Project Size: 105sqm
Our client for this project approached us needing a new entrance installed at her lovely Maudsland Acreage property.
The previous entrance, was a little too far up on the hill and when someone was wishing to turn in, the road in front could not be seen in full, which unfortunately, was the result of an accident in which somebody lost their life.
After showing some great patience waiting for us to get through Saturday Gold Coast traffic in pouring rain, we went through options for installation and a plan was made to allow much better and clearer access to the property.
When we return, our machines excavated a brand new driveway area with an 8m front curved access, running flat and guiding in back to a 5m gate entrance, then proceeding down the hill over a new drain installation to allow for natural water flow, then of course meeting up with the old driveway.
After all the prep work was completed and the drain installed with plenty of crusher dust surrounds, the 120mm thick driveway was poured with a pump, in which we finished with a stiff broom allowing for surface traction whilst highlighting the edges and control joints.
We hand sculpted entrance and exit points to the drain, had a few beers and laughs and called it a day.
Thanks very much to our client, a few carton of eggs and a cast of beer at the end of the job with a smile the entire time. It really is lovely working for country minded people, I’m from the bush and it makes me smile getting away from the city attitude.
Location: Helensvale
Project Size: 220sqm
Last week I dubbed the “Week from hell”. Well this week was only slightly less than that, but with the added twist of having to fix mistakes that were made during last week’s murder week.
To start the week off, I began by brush / acid cleaning this 220sqm existing stamped concrete project out at Helensvale. The stamp pattern on this concrete was lovely, with most of it still in good condition, expect for the pool surrounds and pathway leading to the house, which had weathered and required a little more attention.
After our cleaning to remove mould and open up the concrete pores if you will, I applied two liberal coats of HiBuild sealer throughout with a “Fossil” tint through the mix.
The pool and front pathway then required a third coating to make sure the colour held true and we were all finished up with this project.
A simply rejuvenation process for existing stamped concrete, but still a very effective result leaving an even colour throughout and bringing back the house surrounds to life after 20 years of weathering.
Location: Pimpama
Project Size: 42sqm
“Stage 3”: The….Week…..From….Hell.
The third section of this nightmare freaking week, funnily enough coinciding with Halloween…go figure, is our full flake epoxy floor in “SnowFlake” we installed for our client out at Pimpama.
This one actually had me a little disgusted with my industry. Now don’t get me wrong, none of us are perfect, we all make mistakes and not all of our work is 100% perfect, 100% of the time….but this garage floor substrate was fucking horrific. (Sorry younger readers, but you’re reading the blog of a concreter…deal with it).
Now this is a great lesson for everyone to learn…who doesn’t know it already.
Builders provide bottom dollar quality tradies to complete work for their clients. You may quote me on that shit.
Take for example, the going rate, (roughly), for exposed aggregate concrete, is around $95/sqm starting rate for a direct contractor like myself. A customer can expect to pay a builder in the vicinity of $140/sqm for their exposed aggregate. Most builders, due to negotiations, will pay their sub-contractors in the vicinity of an $80/sqm starting rate.
Needless to say, builders don’t get contractors like myself working for them, because they pay peanuts and I’m not a frigging monkey.
The same goes for your house slab. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying sub-contractors installing works for builders are bad concreters / contractors, I’m just saying you get what you pay for, and those sub-contractors are not going to provide top quality workmanship and materials for basement value prices.
This sometimes can’t be avoided by the clients…mostly, as something like the house slab is considered a normal inclusion in a house contract, but at least our client in this situation had the common sense to boot the builder to the curb and find someone who actually gives a shit.
I quoted this garage site unseen and when I rocked up to start the epoxy, there were literally cracks EVERYWHERE. Now, I’m 20 years in the mud, my off sider is pushing 40 odd years, both of our first reactions…..boys on the piss pouring in the rain. The splintered plastic cracking throughout, with low spots all over (literally swimming pools), a surface that came off with a finger nail wipe and a fall that headed straight from the garage entrance to the hallway door (backwards) just so, you know, clients can wash their hallway while cleaning out the bloody garage.
Ok, ok. I’ll end my little rant here. But please for the love of Bhudda, learn from this client here and contact a contractor directly, you’ll get a much better job completed.
So back to the story.
After grinding out cracks for what seemed like a good hour, these cracks were in filled with epoxy and sand and let sit over night. I returned in the morning again to apply more epoxy to the cracking before coming back later in the day and applying our epoxy flooring.
Of course the floor was primed in the process as well and left sit for a full day before applying our main coatings.
We wanted to match our new epoxy floor in with the Salt and Pepper exposed driveway we were installing, so I decided to go with a Light Grey epoxy tint and apply a 100% “Snow Flake” over the top.
After our application was complete, I returned the next day to chip away the excess flaking, vacuum up all the loose flakes and finally apply a full coating of Urethane Sealer over the top for a full gloss, lovely epoxy flake floor…..man I love working with this stuff.
Thanks again as said before to our lovely client. See you soon for the pool surrounds. You guys have been great to work with.
Location: Pimpama
Project Size: 85sqm
The….Week…..From….Hell.
My god I wish I could just cower up into a ball this week and hide in a corner. But alas, the show must go on.
After our awesome little custom stone finish the other day, we returned over to Pimpama to finish setting up our customers side paths, tank stand and front driveway.
Our customer is here is getting a total package of some sorts. Not only are we completing this section of the concrete, we also completed the full flake epoxy flooring in the garage for them and will return in a few weeks once their pool is finished, to complete some more pathways and the pool surrounds…..talk about a work load. I keep hearing from customers it’s hard to find a contractor who does it all…..well maybe we don’t do it all, but what we do we do damn well.
*System note*: Writer at present may or may not have had a few too many beers this afternoon, please excuse the self accreditation….
Back on track now though.
All the typical with this installation, machines onsite to get the curb out and sub-grade our areas to what we need, SL72 reinforcing mesh all chaired throughout, re-entry bars and starter dowels followed by 4 big, ugly men putting in 12 off cubes of Salt and Pepper exposed aggregate to perfection.
I’m going to break this project down into three sections….because well….SEO and all that are on my back for more content…..but to give a little “overall” perspective on the job….
Salt and Pepper 50/50 mix for surrounds and driveway with a Snowflake 90% white flake epoxy garage looks absolutely insane contrasting against each other.
Enough for now, thanks greatly to our clients. I hope you were able to excuse the few cuss words and rough appearance, we’re not pretty, but your job is.
Location: Gaven
Project Size: 20sqm
Ok, so after giving the proverbial middle finger to the world last week and Scootin’ off to Singapore for a quick break with my daughter, I’ve return this week to a horrific schedule that simply requires many hours hard work and some stiff drinks at the end of the day to make sure I make it through to the Christmas.
First off the bat this week, apart from some prep on another site, was to finish a little new entrance way project out at Gaven for our lovely clients who have been waiting very patiently for us.
This was a great little project that right from the start, the interaction between myself and my clients was fantastic. All of us sitting down to an initial meeting, throwing ideas at each other, seeing what bounced back and what stuck until finally coming up with a semi stone finish design with a colour combination that worked perfectly with it’s surrounding areas.
After completing a surface grind to allow our new products to bond properly, I primed and mixed up a bag of really thick, dry compound in Truffle colouring, dry enough that I could basically trowel render it onto the face of the stairs that had exposed brick, then trowel level two of the bottom stairs that had a negative camber on them allowing water to sit.
After this application, I mixed up another bag of Truffle as per normal specs, and based the remainder of the area, allowing this Truffle colour to become our taped lines that we will see when finished.
After some lengthy rubbing back getting things ready, we went with a simply triangular design at the entrance to the front door, then just outlining the stair treads as we went down the steps…..to be fair, mainly because of wine and so forth and not wanting anyone to break a leg walking down them.
Ocean Sand was up next and two full applications were applied giving us a main colour base to work from, to which I used Sandy Beige to ever so lightly add simple, yet elegant swirling to the design interior.
I sat and looked at it for a bit, thinking it needed just a little something else. Typically I don’t like to fleck these designs, but I decide to add just a very light fleck of Truffle over the top again, which of course not only worked with the taped line colours, but allowed for a little bit more realism to the project.
Two full coats of sealer and another happy client to boot.
Thank you to our clients for your patience waiting on me, your jobs looks amazing and adds style to your entrance.
