The world's foremost resource on decorative concrete
Steve VandeWater, 51, was a Fine Arts major at Indiana University Bloomington, studying sculpture, drawing and printmaking. This artistic background informs his approach to concrete and also gives him skill and success with different styles and techniques.
Unstable subgrade is the primary culprit in cracking, shifting and settling in concrete around pools. We can all agree that concrete is only as good as what you put it on top of.
Paul Schneider is one of the lucky people in this world whose hobby and occupation are one and the same: decorative concrete. “Most people don’t think of a hobby as something you make money off of,” he says. But he does it.
Looking at it today, it’s hard to imagine that the focal point of the Weiner family’s backyard used to be a $300 aboveground swimming pool from Walmart. Now, the award-winning residential resort is more in line with the likes of Neiman Marcus with its outdoor kitchen, water slide, conversation area with fire pit, and concrete swimming pool and spa with a Baja shelf, two in-pool tables and a shaded pavilion.
Across the country, safety surfacing products are gaining in popularity as more people discover that rubber and rubber-like granules not only feel good under the feet and cushion a fall but can also look good, too.
Scott Cohen, artisan and construction defect expert witness, whose company The Green Scene makes decorative backyards and pools in Southern California, has observed problems around salt-chlorinated pools too, but he is far from certain that all salt pools are problematic.
When Tom Ralston Concrete took on the job of building Todd Turowski a lap pool in the backyard of his hillside house in Scotts Valley, Calif., they did so with eyes wide open.
A backyard is dominated by a swimming pool with waterfalls, a rocky cliff look, and lots of concrete from the 1980s — far too much to remove the existing concrete and redo everything and is ready to be transformed.
The combination of pools and stamped concrete doesn’t necessarily spell disaster. For one thing, when a stamped concrete surface near a pool is slick, a topical sealer, not the texture, is often the culprit.
Unlike a fine wine, decorative concrete does not always age well.
And a decade or two after the first massive surge in popularity of decorative concrete, plenty of owners of residential and commercial property are realizing that their patterned, textured and colored concrete does not look like it once did.
