Bespoke Beach Garden for Warwick Davis
Background
In August 2020 SureSet was contacted by the famous English actor Warwick Davis, to which you may know him for playing characters in the Star Wars film series, most notably the role of Wicket an Ewok in the early ’80s, as well as Griphook in the Harry Potter movies. An excellent comedian starring in a sitcom based on himself, filmmaker and television presenter, in more recent years presenting well-loved TV game shows such as Tenable and Celebrity Squares.
Warwick Davis had a unique request for us to help him achieve his vision of a tropical themed outdoor dining area and he wanted SureSet to create a bespoke and striking paving feature at his home located in East England.
Job Brief/Planning
Warwick had a custom tiki hut built in his garden, the wooden Polynesian inspired garden hut is his man cave, a place where he can entertain whilst grilling his favourite BBQ food for all his family and friends, the tiki hut has the most amazing thatched roof designed to guide smoke through the top when cooking.
When Warwick contacted SureSet and explained he wished to create a bespoke desert island in his back garden, ‘a resin desert island’, as he called it, we completely understood why and were extremely excited to create something spectacular!
Warwick had done his research on resin bound paving and had previously seen our other beach garden projects amongst our online case studies…
Beach inspired theme park paving
After receiving various stone samples, technical advice, and a brochure he decided to get in touch to arrange a home visit to discuss the complexity of his beach effect design and his requirements. SureSet was able to explain in detail the process needed to achieve his vision and allowed us to check the existing base, plan the method of installation and measure the areas needed for resin bound. After our site visit, we supplied a full quotation and specification data needed for his contractors to complete the base preparations.
For budgeting purposes and to gain an estimate for resin bound prior to SureSet visiting, we will need to know the approximate total size of the area you are looking to transform in m². SureSet is able to provide a guide on how to calculate the area correctly but in general, you would take the width and length of an area in meters and multiply them together to gain your total area in meters squared.
Process/Execution
The bespoke beach effect garden was installed in late Spring this year. We had an existing surface of concrete to install the resin bound materials over, and to ensure strength and durability from the ground up a primer was applied to the concrete and a 44m² CRM (crack reduction membrane) was rolled on top. By adding the CRM to the concrete base will offer extra resistance to potential concrete cracking that could affect the resin bound paving.
A concrete base should be laid level and whilst the top resin bound surface will accommodate any minor irregularities, there shouldn’t be any significant ‘cracks or undulations’. New concrete bases need to have cured for a minimum of 14 days with a PVA primer applied prior to resin bound being applied. If expansion joints are needed in the concrete then they too will also need to be reflected into the resin bound surface.
The colours used to create the beach effect paving were varying percentages of 3mm Butterscotch from our Natural Aggregate Range and Winter Frost from our Luxury Crushed Marbles to create the appearance of sand and the water bubbles that splash on the shoreline.
Chosen from our Spectrum range was a 3mm recycled glass in colours Aqua and Sky Blue, they were used to create the blue wave depths against the golden sand in an organic ripple formation.
Colour grading like this is very popular for unique projects and design ideas and we would always install this style of a project using a hand float to ensure the level of intricacy is maintained throughout the installation process. The resin bound colours were evenly spread with a spazzle and then hand floated to a compact and uniform level (this doesn’t include the wave effect areas, we did our utmost to make the water flow look natural).
A good quality resin bound system, like SureSet, will be suitable for use after 4-6 hours for foot traffic and 12-16 hours for vehicular traffic. Where possible, we feel 24 hours is the ideal time to wait especially for a surface that will be heavily used - just to ensure that it is fully cured.
After our installation, the newly laid areas were cordoned off to avoid any traffic type on the freshly laid resin bound, (the hardest thing for most resin bound installations is to keep the local cats from stepping through it).
To complete the surrounding edges of the beach, a 12mm linear edging was installed to continue the natural stone colour from the beach down the side of the garden wall. The existing edging stones in place were masked up to protect them from any resin staining.
The whole project installation was a huge success and Warwick even got involved by leaving a beautiful love message in the sand for his wife before using a trusty Resin Bull float to smooth around it.
This beautiful and hard wearing patio surface will give Warwick and his family many years of use and on the plus side will require virtually no maintenance.
All SureSet systems are UV stable and strong to be able to protect from frost damage during colder months. The reliability of a SureSet resin bound surfacing system means the stones remain intact, preventing stones from becoming loose and weeds from growing through.
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