andy Beard didn’t flinch when he heard the request. His client wanted the surface of his new pool to resemble the color of a Sapphire Gin bottle: a rich, electric blue. Beard knew he could fulfill the client’s wish.
“We are cutting edge and develop colors no one has seen,” says Beard, owner of Pure Water Pools, a pool construction firm based in Costa Mesa, Calif. “Today, clients want to do something different.”
When specialty finishes hit the market more than a decade ago, they were designed to meet the needs of clients who wanted to “do something different.” Now applicators are taking these quartz and aggregate finishes one step further. They are bypassing the prefab mixes sold by many material providers, preferring instead to create their own pebble combinations using custom colors and patterns.
“It is infinite what you can do,” says Alan Smith, owner of Alan Smith Pool Plastering Inc. in Orange, Calif., the company Beard subcontracts to put the finish on many of his projects.
Smith began doing specialty finishes approximately five years ago and says he hardly does any white plaster jobs anymore. His customers prefer custom-made blends. “Right off the bat, when I started doing [specialty aggregate finishes], I mixed stuff for kicks and the customers liked what I was doing,” he recalls. “I would get them these samples of [custom finishes] and they would get excited.”
Doing custom specialty finishes won’t necessarily turn your company into an industry giant overnight, but it can add a few extra dollars to your bottom line. Smith says he earns about $500 to $1,000 more per job. But for most plasterers, it’s not just about the money; it’s more about being innovative.
Blending in
Plasterers who delve into customized finishes usually buy their quartz and pebbles in bulk by individual color. This allows the applicators to pick and choose which pebbles to combine without fear of altering a proprietary recipe.
With every specialty finish he creates, Smith makes a sample for future customers to view. “We have so many now, about 40, that we have to catalog them,” he says. “About once every two weeks, we [create a new color].”
The combinations are endless. One can mix a variety of pebbles, blend colored quartzes or combine quartz with pebbles. One trend calls for adding colored glass stones or the smoother colored glass beads to the pebbles. But whatever combination you choose, finishers warn that you need to be able to discern what the overall color will look like once it is underwater and the sun is shining on it.
The ability to anticipate the hues that the water’s surface will ultimately reflect comes with experience and a basic understanding of color. “You have to know color rules — the principles of color — because sometimes the customer wants something bizarre,” Smith says.
For example, some blends have too much brown in them for the customer’s taste. Smith will remove the brown and replace it with purple, which will create a more natural look once the light is refracted off the water’s surface.
Color coordinated
Most customized finishes are created with a base color first — a combination of white, gold, black and tan (sometimes called “tech rock”). The applicator can then tweak it to get specific results: Add blue to the brown and it will have a greenish tint in refracted light, or replace the brown and/or tan with more white and you’ll end up with more bluish water.
“The more whites you have, the bluer the mix; the more browns, the greener the tint will be,” says Rob Burkett, owner of Burkett’s Pool Plastering in Ripon, Calif. “It’s the same rules with colored plaster. So if you’ve done colored plaster, you will have a sense [of what colors look like underwater in refracted light] and that should help you.”
These customized colors aren’t created arbitrarily, plasterers say. They are chosen to fit in with the pool’s design and style, along with the backyard’s natural landscaping. “The hardscape — the colors of the brick and tile — are something to consider,” says Kirk Chapman, owner of Poolscape Unlimited, a plastering company based in Lakeside, Calif.
It’s important, however, to keep the clients involved in the customization process, to get them to understand the idea of refracted light and how the pool’s look will change throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky.
Smith says that his potential clients can visit the pools of former customers to get a sense of what the finishes look like underwater. He also gives out samples that clients can set in the pool water.
In the end, though, people must make “a leap of faith” and believe in the plasterer. “We try to get them to move away from the samples and get them to trust us,” Beard says.
Seeing things clearly
Because every pool reflects somewhat differently, plasterers are unable to guarantee the final color of the water. Consequently, Chapman has his customers sign a “color acceptance form.” His document explains that issues such as water depth and clarity, the surrounding landscape, tile color and other variables can affect the pool’s water color.
“We explain all these things and that we’ll put in the actual color they want, but they need to understand that these issues come into play,” Chapman says. “We want to educate the consumer as much as we can before we get started.”
