Outdoor paving is useful for a number of reasons.
You may want to create a dry walking area,
or give the entranceway a new look.
There are a lot of off-the-shelf pavers available,
but in some cases, it can be better to make your own paving
because, for a similar amount of effort and cost,
you can customize them to fit the exact area you need.
So I'm going to show you how to make some exposed aggregate
pavers yourself.
So what I've got are some horrible old stones.
So what I'm going to do is dig all these out,
and I'm going to make my pavers in between these areas.
So what I'm thinking, I'm going to have two pavers sitting
here, two pavers sitting here.
And what I think I'll do is lay a continuation of these steps,
a strip, one there.
And now, almost like keeping the same line as these pavers going
across here, another two.
Exactly the same dimensions of these.
And then I'll just lay a garden across here.
Now, that's going to give us protection
on the deck from the neighbors, give us a little bit of privacy
also.
Now, in between these pavers, I think
I'll put some nice, new, white stones around it.
And that'll I'll out amongst the black pavers.
First step, draw up a plan with all the dimensions.
By 14.45.
I'm going to make my pavers 75 millimeters thick.
And also, underneath that, I'm going
to have 25-mill mill of fines to give a nice, firm base.
So effectively, what I need to do is dig down 100 mill.
To recap, I'm digging down 100 millimeters.
This will allow for 25 millimeters of fines as a base,
and 75 millimeters for the paver.
Now, in this particular situation,
all my borders are already defined by this boxing.
So if you're at home and you want to do a strip of pavers
down the middle of your lawn, what you might want to do
is run a couple of string lines so you
know the exact area that you're going to be digging out.
Now, I was pretty lucky in this situation here.
Underneath my old stones were some fines.
So I'm going to get the compactor in here, compact
that down.
So that's around about 25 mill of fines.
Now, obviously, at home, if you just strike dirt,
you're still going to have to fill that up
with about 25 mill of fines, and still compact it.
Now I've compacted that down.
It's all looking pretty good.
And I've started laying in our boxing
in between where our pavers are going to go.
Now, a good little rule of thumb you
want to think about when you're laying your pavers.
You want to be no more than about 500 millimeters
from the center to the center of your pavers.
If you put them too far apart, you'll be striding.
If you put them too close, you're
going to do a whole lot of little shuffles.
So what I've got here, a couple of bits of 3 by 3.
I've nailed them together.
And that's going to give me my exact width that I want,
90 mill.
Now, a good little tip for you.
I've just put a little chamfer on the edge of that boxing.
And that's just going to help me pop it out.
You could also put some, like, old engine oil or something
like that on there.
That'll help lubricate it and pull it out.
So I'm just going to put my last one in.
Now, there's a couple of different ways
you could attach this boxing.
You could use nails.
Come in through the outside here, and just leave
the nail sticking out a slight bit so it's
nice and easy to pull out.
I'm just using some square-drive 3-inch screws.
And they'll come out nice and easy, too.
We're just about ready for our concrete.
The last thing we have to do is cut our mesh.
I've laid all my mesh.
I've just got the last place to cut.
Now, there's a couple of different ways
you can cut this mesh.
Either you use an angle grinder, a hacksaw if you like,
or you can just use these nice and simple set of bolt cutters.
Now, a wee little tip.
When you are cutting your mesh, you just
want to make sure that you're about 40 to 50 millimeters away
from the edge of your boxing.
Once you've made sure all your mesh fits the holes,
remove it all before your first pour of concrete.
OK.
I'm just about ready to place in my concrete.
Now, the type of concrete that I'm using is just the stock
standard dry mix, ready-mixed in a bag.
Now all I have to do, tip that into a barrow
or concrete mixer, and just add water.
What I'm going to do is actually add some black oxide.
That's going to give it a really nice dark color, sort
of a charcoal color.
Now, a wee little tip.
What I'm going to do is add half the stock standard concrete
into our pavers.
I'll put my mesh in, and then I'm
going to top it up with our colored concrete.
Two reasons for that.
One, I'm going to save money on the black oxide.
And two, I'm going to get more color consistency
over more steps with one mix in the barrow.
Now I'm just going to use a vibrator just
to make sure this concrete gets all the air bubbles out of it.
I'm going to give it a really nice solid mix.
It's not imperative.
You could tap the sides with a hammer
to get those air bubbles out.
But this is a really good way to make
sure we get a nice, solid pour.
[MACHINE WHIRRING]
Cool.
So I'm just going to add in that mesh.
And then we'll top it up a little
bit later with a good mix of our black oxide.
I've mixed up some more concrete and finished off
the rest of the pavers.
Now for the black oxide.
You just add it into your concrete to color.
Follow the instructions on the packet, pour it over your mesh,
and concrete away as per normal.
OK.
I'm just using an old bit of timber
to scree this off roughly level.
And then I'm just going to finish it off
with my magnesium trowel.
I'm not going to use a steel float
trowel to finish this off.
It's going to bring up too much water at this stage.
So all we need to do is use our timber
and our magnesium trowel.
Now, when you're using the edging trowel,
it's quite of a fine line when you do put it in.
You don't want to put it in too late.
Otherwise, coin concrete's already set.
And you don't want to put it in early when it's too wet.
So it's kind of a little bit--
probably about 20 minutes after you place the concrete,
throw it in there.
Now, we don't need to get too fussy on it
because we are going to be spraying this later
and exposing the concrete.
So all we need to do is a nice little radius.
Righty-o.
Well, concrete's in.
I've troweled it off.
Now, what I'm going to do next is
I'm going to spray some Rugasol on the top.
Now, Rugasol eats away at about the top five to six millimeters
on the surface.
Now, that just eats away at all that slurry,
and it gives a really nice, exposed stone look.
So what I'm going to do is just a wee little test
first with my finger to see if the concrete's dry enough
for me to spray it on.
So we just want to make sure that it's tacky
so it only just comes off on the tip of our finger.
Yep, that's looking really good.
So what I'm going to do is use a spray bottle.
And we'll give a really fine mist spray.
We don't want to put truckloads on.
Otherwise, it's going to eat too deep into the surface.
All we're looking for is to give it a really fine mist spray.
And then we're going to let it wait for about 24 hours.
Next day, I'm going to come and hose it off.
Righty-o.
Now I'm just going to do exactly the same to all the rest.
And when you're finished, make sure you rinse out
your sprayer.
Now it's been 24 hours.
I'm just about to remove the top surface
to expose the aggregate.
Now, to do that, I'm going to use a water blaster.
I've got that set right on minimum setting.
So I'm not going to hit it too hard.
Now, you can use a garden hose, if you like.
You just want to take your time.
Now, a couple of tips.
Now, if you are working near any drains,
you might want to put a silage or a hay bale
in that gutter to capture this top slurry.
You certainly don't want any of this
to hit anywhere near any waterways.
And I've got this on a fan setting,
so we're just going to go really nice and lightly.
Next step is removing our boxing.
Now, we really just want to take care our time doing this.
I'm going to pop the screws out, and I'm
going to give our boxing a wee little tap with a hammer
just to loosen it from the concrete.
OK.
Now I'm just going to repeat the same process for the rest.
Now you're ready to add your finishing touches.
I've decided on some black stain for my borders
and some white pebbles in the gaps between my pavers.
Check it out.
There's our exposed aggregate pavers.
As you can see, they look great, and have helped
finish off this area nicely.
Plus, no more muddy socks when you're going to get the mail.