Finally. Although we’ve been back for a few weeks now, we’ve had literally the worst kind of weather system for what we do around at the moment. Rain sessions every morning which makes things to wet for us to do anything for most of the remaining day. But we have persisted, as best we can, until Thursday and Friday where the sun returned and we smashed out our first project for 2021. A pretty cool new design style of ours to boot.
Having a solid 3 weeks or so off over Christmas, as well as a slow start to 2021, has also given me some time to reflect, along with chatting to a few of my peers in regards to burn out, new designs and being upset with other, newer contractors copying design styles and names of designs. If you read my last article before the Christmas break, you’ll know already that I don’t mind seeing copy cats, in fact, it’s a compliment on one hand, plus also, providing they’re keeping their standards high, it only means more confidence in the industry, which in turn means more work for me (rubs hands together greedily).
In one circumstance, a fellow “artistic cement over layer” (I just made that up, trademark? No copying huh?) was a bit torn down by not only having one of the designs he’s taken a long time to perfect copied, but also the other contractor literally taking the descriptions / marketing wording from his site.
I must admit, it is kind of deflating having it happen, but more to the point, it’s just a mental let down really, that they can’t even think up your own wording for your own marketing? I mean really…..Just a few words? Common. I know we’re concreters at the end of the day, but surely you’re more articulate than just flat out plagiarising others peoples marketing. Whatever. The one thing that doesn’t get me down about it, of which I tried to re-ensure Peter from Ultimate Industries about is…..
They’ll always be one step behind. Its our job lead the way for them to follow.
Now please, if you’re reading this, I am in no way being elitist. That is the last thing on my mind. More to the point, I’m using this to stay humble. To see the bigger picture. To see that the higher end work that we do is more than just a dollar figure. It’s about creation. It’s about our artwork. It’s about us expressing our personality in what we do for work, to make it more than work. This is also why it’s deflating seeing and hearing other contractors just being complete copy cats. Show something of yourself for customers to see. Be creative.
If you haven’t seen what Peter from Ultimate Industries is up to, just do a search on Facebook. Easily the best Timber Effect Overlay I’ve seen in 20 years in the industry.
This brings me onto this project we’ve just completed. We have many custom designs, albeit mostly in the same design style, just tweaked and configured differently, to suit different applications and different clients requirements. We had a chance last year with a lovely customer of ours Len, who wanted something very creative and unique, which allowed us to start fine tuning this new (yet old) design style we’re doing.
You can find that project article HERE
Over the next 12 months, customers pending of course, we will be displaying several variations of this design, in different colours, different patterns, water based stained versions, singular colour version (as we see here), lots of different ideas will come from this.
It’s a skip trowel overlay to replicate a more realistic stone appearance on the surface. It’s a prick to complete and is very time consuming and to be fair, a lot of technical knowledge required to get right…..stating this with as much modesty as I can. It really is an ass.
Photos of the project are below, of course it rained for the photos as well which made it difficult to get some angles due to water pooling, but lots of close ups for a better view.
This first project for 2021, is for a fantastic and amazing couple we have completed several projects previously for, one of them being what Kevin call, “The M1 Highway” (article found HERE).
Thanks so much for your work Graetz family, looking forward to seeing you again in a few weeks for more work.
Just for a little copy cat fun. All of my designs, even though I have made them my own over many years fine tuning them, have originally had inspiration come from elsewhere. Including this one which comes from installers in America…..
I guess I’m a copy cat as well huh?