This sink/counter has an 8″ vertical edge height with an overall dimension of 47″ x 22″. The sink itself is 8″ deep with a high faucet to be able to accomadate the filling larger containers as well as rinse clothing. The vanity was also custom built with large pull out drawers.
Swimming pool and patio renovation project. The pool was renovated before we began our portion of the project. During this process, the coping was raised about 2″ to allow us enough room to apply our product over the existing concrete. The concrete had been painted to hide patches and cracking. The patio as well as the pool deck, had several areas that did not pitch right and collected water. Once we were able to establish the correct heights in order to make the water drain correctly, we poured a structural slab that would provide a strong base for our handcrafted stone. We used white sand and white portland to produce a very white concrete that will remain comfortable for barefoot traffic even on the hottest days.
Unique Concrete was recently featured in an article for Concrete Decor Magazine. Concrete Decor is the premier magazine for the decorative concrete trade. This article profiles a project that we completed last summer in Sussex County, New Jersey. Below is the text from the article and here is a link to the article on Concrete Decor’s site.
Last year, a homeowner in Augusta, New Jersey, went into a masons’ supply store looking for a fix for his pool deck. The pavers installed 15 years ago had settled. The deck wasn’t draining properly, and his homeowner’s insurance company had identified the paver portion of the pool deck as a hazard.
The staff suggested he contact Unique Concrete in West Milford, New Jersey, to learn about alternatives to pavers.
“The old pavers were laid in a sand base, which is typical,” says Todd Fisher of Unique Concrete, a family company owned by Fisher’s father, Barry. “Pavers started to get really popular around here 15 or 20 years ago. They didn’t understand the need to excavate, build up that base layer and get good drainage.”
The pool deck consisted of a concrete coping around the pool, surrounded by pavers. Originally, the homeowner had sought estimates on tearing out the concrete, taking up the pavers and reusing the pavers in a new deck. But the old concrete turned out to be up to a foot thick in sections and demolishing it would be expensive. A fence around the pool limited access to the pool area, meaning everything had to be transported by wheelbarrow.
“It was a very thick mass of concrete, but overall, for the amount of time that had elapsed, it was in pretty good shape and structurally sound,” Todd Fisher says.
Tying the old with the new
The project of tying together the old concrete with a new slab was a good candidate for Unique Concrete’s characteristic process, which it calls Handcrafted Stone.
The process involves two steps. First, the Fishers pour a structural slab that doesn’t have to be pretty. “Not only can we put in rebar, but we can also add structural polypropylene fibers that would prevent it from being stamped,” he says. When they resurface existing concrete, as in this job, they pour a 3/4-inch structural layer with both polypropylene and polyvinyl acetate fibers. “It is a blend we have come up with that provides enough workability to be placed and tined (roughed up) to achieve a mechanical bond for the decorative layer,” Fisher says.
The next day, they go back and pour a 1-inch-thick overlay. Instead of a polymer-modified material, they use a mortar-style mix, meaning there is no large aggregate with a small aggregate. Colloidal silica in the mix “acts like a pozzolan to make it durable,” Fisher says. The decorative layer mix consists of well-graded concrete sand, portland cement, colloidal silica, a polycarboxylate superplasticizer and PVA fibers, as well as the integral color. “It behaves more like a traditional concrete mix, meaning it trowels and textures better than a polymer-modified mix,” Fisher says. Their standard decorative mix tests at 5,800 psi. When necessary, he adds, they use a different mix tested at 8,000 psi.
The overlay is stamped with “old-fashioned cookie cutter-style stamps,” which make an impression that goes all the way down to the underlying slab. The voids between the “stones” in the pattern are grouted with a polymer-modified grout applied with a grout bag and tooled. The grout lines behave as control joints, preventing the “stones” from cracking.
Adding features that ‘rock’
The pool deck was completed in July 2014. The homeowner removed the pavers. The crew, consisting of Fisher, his brother, Timothy, and their father, installed 120 linear feet of drains, connecting them to an existing drainage system in the yard. Then they poured the 2,500-square-foot slab and the overlay, breaking both into sections because the fence limited access to the site. The Fishers textured the overlay with rollers of their own creation, then colored the integrally colored overlay with water-based stain, applying it to individual “stones” for a realistic look.
In addition to the uneven pavers, the homeowner wanted to replace an old diving board. Fisher suggested replacing it with a concrete diving rock. The homeowner was delighted with this idea and purchased a Jandy Sheer Descent waterfall and LED lighting to be installed under the rock.
“We created a rough shape out of concrete block and then used that to mount the plumbing and the electrical,” Fisher said. “We poured a skeleton out of a sand mix that could be rough-carved to the shape of the rocks. Once that was set, we came back with a vertical carving mix from Concrete Texturing that we manipulated by hand to create the final texture. We used texture rollers and skins.”
During the whole project, the pool remained full—of both water and people. Fisher’s crew floated polystyrene foam boards on the water to prevent material from falling in. That enabled the family to use the pool without interruption all summer, and the homeowner’s grandchildren have pronounced their new dive rock — more suited to their size than the old diving board — a rocking success.
Here is an assortment of pictures and videos. There is a little bit of everything, from the tools we use, to the on site mixing, to clips from the shop. Enjoy!
Unique Concrete was recently featured on the ConcreteNetwork.com for its work on a project in Wantage, New Jersey which is located in Sussex County. This particular project also won first place in a competition hosted by the American Society of Concrete Contractors.
Click here to go to the article
A project that Unique Concrete completed in the summer of 2014 was featured in an article in the February/March edition of Concrete Decor Magazine. Concrete Decor is the leading publication for decorative concrete in the world. This project was in Augusta, New Jersey.
For the second year in a row, Unique Concrete has won an award for its outstanding work in the field of decorative concrete. The competition is hosted by the American Society of Concrete Contractors. The ASCC is the largest organization of concrete contractors world wide with companies ranging from large to small. This awards competition is judged by industry experts in the field of decorative concrete. Last year Unique Concrete won first place for stamped concrete projects over 5,000 square feet for its work on the Livingston Project. This year Unique Concrete placed first for stamped concrete projects under 5,000 square feet for its work on the Wantage Project.
This project included The front stairs were resurfaced and the verticals areas were replastered. The sidewalk was reshaped at the bottom of the stairs to create a larger landing and correct pitch. For the driveway, we removed the asphalt and the existing drains. The new drains were placed in a concrete footing, then a structural slab was poured along with the structural slab for the patio. We also poured a decorative curb along the one edge of the patio that mimics the look of large stones. Once the handcrafted stone was completed, we stained the stones creating a unique look. The entire project was then grouted with a natural grey grout.
This project involved a decorative concrete driveway, front entryway, and sidewalk. Decorative curbs accented both the driveway and the sidewalk. One side of the border was raised to act both as a curb and an effective way to contain a landscaped area. These borders are integrally colored and poured in a separate step from the rest of the driveway in order to preserve the color difference for the lifetime of the product. Stains were utilized to offset and individualize different areas of the pattern. An antique wash was done over the entire surface for a natural, variegated look. The existing front porch was in good shape, but in need of a face lift. The clients wanted to add a new sidewalk that would extend from the existing porch to the sidewalk along the street. We resurfaced the existing porch first with a structural coat that corrected the pitch and covered the gap between the concrete and the brick border. Once this was done and the structural slab was poured for the new sidewalk, we poured integrally colored accent borders. These borders are more durable than any other process due to the fact that they are integrally colored and done in an entirely separate step than the field pattern. After the borders were complete, we poured the integrally colored random ashlar stone. We then acid washed both the sidewalk and the porch as a way of pre aging the concrete and to prepare it for accent stains and antiquing. We used several colors of accent stains to tie in the existing brick work on the front of the home and then used an antiquing wash over everything. We then grouted the stone with a natural grey grout. Everything was then sealed with a triple threat sealer that is designed to densify, waterproof, and protect.
This was a resurfacing of an existing concrete pool deck. The pool is a vinyl liner with the wide metal coping. The existing deck and some cracking and settling and the homeowners wanted to replace the skimmer and pool lines, as well as add additional patio space. Another interesting feature to this project was the addition of a dive rock. Rather than try to bring in a large natural rock with a machine, we chose to hand carve/sculpt one out of concrete. This created a functional focal point at the end of the pool, and was a very cost effective alternative.
