"A Duck's Tale" - A concrete skim coating project in Lakeworth, TX

June 2011 Job of the Month - This was a concrete skim coating project we did in Lakeworth, Tx to help a homeowner create a more common theme throughout the area. The pool deck had a "cool deck" overlay on it that had faded a bit and was looking a little dated while the patio and sidewalks had an exposed aggregate finish that was hard on the feet as you can see in the picture below. This type of finish has small stones on the sticking out of the concrete surface and if any of them have sharp edges it can be hard to walk on barefoot.

Next we power washed the entire slab to clean off anything that might prevent our concrete skim coating material from sticking tightly to the floor. Then we mixed up the skim coat material and applied it to the patio and pool deck. We always apply two coats and this fills in the spaces between the stones, creating a smoother finish. Our Lakeworth homeowner wanted a stone pattern in the floor so once the concrete skim coating material had dried we chalked it out and then scored (cut) the pattern using a handheld grinder.

After scoring we started the staining process and here we found out why the ducks were hanging around. Just as we were staining the sidewalk a duck suddenly exploded out of a small bush of Japanese grass right next to it. It was a nest with some small eggs! Don't worry, we didn't poke around in it, we were just amazed at how well hidden she had been in there. We got back to work and applied a second stain coat to the floor using a different, complementary color.