These pictures come from twenty years of stamped concrete on European building sites — the same mats, the same colour hardeners and the same hands we work with today from Buchs ZH. None of them is a catalogue photo.
The difference is clearest where there used to be gravel, grass or old cracked concrete. Every pair shows the same surface, photographed from the same spot.
The yard was a poured concrete surface that had cracked open over the years — grass was growing in the cracks and the slabs were no longer level with each other. Today there is one continuous surface with a cobble stamp.
A passage barely two metres wide, previously loose soil and rubble. Strips like this are laborious with interlocking pavers and full of joints — poured as a single slab they become one continuous, seamless run.
Between the house wall and the boundary wall lay coarse gravel: noisy to walk on, muddy in winter, full of weeds in summer. Now it is a closed surface in terracotta, falling away from the facade.
Not new concrete but maintenance: after a few years of sun and rain the sealer had gone dull and the colour pale. Clean the surface, reseal it — the texture and the colour had been there the whole time.
Not just the result but the whole way there: old surface out, sub-base, reinforcement, concrete, stamping, sealing. Click an image to see it large.
In front of the house was red-and-grey paving that had settled over the years. We lifted it, rebuilt the sub-base and poured the yard, driveway and pool surround as one connected surface.
6 images · Yard, driveway, pool edge · Sand beige, slab pattern
A large courtyard with a covered passage. You can see the reinforcement, the freshly placed concrete and the finished surface — the same texture runs from the gate right under the arches, with no step and no joint.
8 images · Courtyard, passage, side path · Sand tone
Here the whole sequence is in the pictures: formation level, gravel and reinforcement, then the concrete being screeded by two people — and finally the finished, dark-tinted driveway up to the front door.
4 images · Driveway and entrance · Dark grey tone
A surface that is turned on and parked on every day. Only a few days lie between fresh, still-grey concrete and the finished surface — the colour comes from the colour hardener worked into the fresh concrete.
4 images · Forecourt, driveway, side path · Warm brown tone
In front of the new build there was still lawn, soil and gravel. Measuring up, sub-base, reinforcement and concreting ran in one go — the finished driveway reaches the corner of the house without a single step.
3 images · Driveway and forecourt · Light grey
The surfaces a car stands or turns on every day.
Surfaces with chairs on them — which is why there is no joint cross under the chair leg.
Narrow surfaces with a lot of edge — exactly where interlocking pavers let through the most weeds.
Safe to walk on when wet, chlorine-resistant and with no joint for water to collect in.
Close up: texture, edge finishes and the places that show whether the work was done cleanly.
Your pattern not here? The textures shown are the most common ones, not the only ones. We bring the mats and the colour chart to the consultation — then you see the texture at full size before you decide.
Tell us how big the area is and what will stand or drive on it. Consultation, measuring and quotation cost nothing.
