Stamped Concrete Border

Over the last three weeks, we have been busy working on different things around the house so we could get started on putting a driveway in. Travis's dad brought the tractor over one weekend and we graded our lot a little better and compacted the area where the concrete pad would go. After that, we had 12 yards of gravel brought in. While I was on the road for work, Travis spread all 12 yards around the area for the pad, but it still wasn't enough. So another 12 yards was delivered, but this time I was lucky enough to help. I think my back is still sore from shoveling load after load into a wheelbarrow; I couldn't imaging doing all 12 yards by myself! With the gravel all spread and compacted, we started building the forms for the concrete pad. Since Trav and I don't like to make things too easy, we decided to not only do the stamped concrete ourselves, but to do a pattern with a border as well. We were up until there was no more light trying to finish last night because the concrete truck was coming at 7:00 this morning and out working by 5:00 this morning doing all the last minute details. I'm glad I took a couple quick pictures of the forms last night because there was not a minute to spare this morning. We were still running around like chickens with our heads cut off this morning when the concrete truck arrived.

Here are the pictures I managed to get last night of the gravel, forms, rebar, etc.

And the truck arriving right on time...The truck we had made it so much easier. I think they said it could reach up to 50 feet, so they were able to just shoot the concrete right into our forms instead of us having to shovel it around. You can also see what the concrete stamps look like in this picture. They are the blue rubbery looking things. We bought two of them to try and make it easier on ourselves.

This was just after the got all the concrete poured into the forms. We had help from two of Trav's friends, which I am so thankful for because there would have been no way that we could have done it ourselves. You can also see that Trav has been making quite a bit of progress on the rock on the front of the house. He got one of the columns up to the archway and is almost there on the other side.

After screeting and troweling, the concrete was looking pretty good and we just had to wait for it to set up a bit more before we hit it with the stamps. We actually ordered more concrete than we needed, so Trav built a quick step off the door coming out the back side of our garage. It set up a lot faster because there was a lot more direct sunlight on it, so we were able to do somewhat of a practice run with the stamp on that.

By 11:30, we had the release applied which is a powder colorant and the border all stamped. It turned out so awesome and felt like such an accomplishment. Unfortunately I think I will be feeling this accomplishment in my hamstrings for the next couple of days.

The stamp was a cobblestone pattern, so in this view from the front door, you can see the actual pattern a lot better. There is still a lot of release on there, so the grout lines aren't showing up as much as they will. We will wash off the release tomorrow and will probably also add a darker colorant to the grout lines to make them stand out even more.

Mocha even found a new favorite spot!

The next step will be to take the forms off and then pour concrete on the inside of the border. We are looking at doing a red release and a slate stamp which is what we used on our stairs.