At first glance, the concrete dock looks like it’s floating just above the water.
“It turned out exactly how I wanted it,” says Reuben Keim, co-owner of Keim Concrete in Wooster, Ohio, about his concrete platform. The pier and dock, which sit about a foot above the surface of a 2-acre pond in Keim’s backyard, was fashioned with Proline form liners, stamps and texture mats and built with an array of products largely from Deco-Crete Supply.
Keim, with help from his decorative work crew and his wife and five kids ages 4 to 15, built the pier. They also built the 20-foot diameter dock over many evenings and weekends in about four months. The project began with Keim draining the pond. Then he went to work on cleaning it out. Once that was done, the next step was building a rebar and concrete foundation. This includes a 4-by-4-square-foot platform that’s about 8 feet tall and supports the dock.
The pier leading to the dock features a pattern formed with Proline’s Reclaimed Timber stamps and Brownstone color hardener and Chocolate release, flanked by 8-inch borders created with a Quarry Stone texture mat and colored with Travertine color hardener. Keim used one of Proline’s two-part step liners to do the walkway’s edgework, which also includes LED lights that shine down on the water when the sun sets.
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The dock’s focal point is a stamped 16-Point Star Medallion acid stained in a variety of blacks. It is also surrounded by a Roman Slate border with Brownstone color hardener and Chocolate release.
The time and money invested in this backyard amenity was fully worth it, Keim says. The kids love it and “spend hours out there swimming.”
After work, he says, he finds himself dockside just about every night. A perfect weekend for him includes “sitting out there on top of the water grilling steaks.” As if the setting couldn’t get any better, Keim stocks the pond with largemouth bass, bluegill and crappie.
As Oscar Wilde once said, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.”
With that in mind, one Ohio contractor reached out to another, namely Reuben Keim, for help. He wanted both advice and insight on how to build a stamped concrete dock of his very own. See how Jim Sanguedolce’s Dolce Lodge project turned out.
