Walkways, a back patio, a curved path to the shed and a covered parking pad around one Bothell home, all coated in Tidal Wave flake polyurea.
Most coating jobs stop at the garage door. This one kept going. A Bothell homeowner wanted every piece of concrete around the house to match: the long side walkway lined with potted plants, the back patio by the lawn, a curved path out to the garden shed, and the covered pad where the cars park.
Before, it was a patchwork. Green algae streaked the patio, oil and tire marks darkened the parking area, and the walkway had gone grey and dull. Now it is one continuous concrete coating in Bothell, finished in Certified Penntek polyurea with Tidal Wave flake, from the front door to the back fence.
The free consultation was in January 2025, in the middle of a wet Bothell winter, which is a good time to see concrete at its worst. The photos from that visit tell the story. Algae grew in long streaks where water sat on the patio. Under the carport roof, drips and tire tracks had soaked into the slab. Every section had a different shade of grey, and none of it looked like it belonged to the same house.
We measured each area and checked the concrete before quoting. Outdoor slabs take more abuse than garage floors. They see rain, sun, leaf litter and freeze-thaw, so the prep and the coating both have to be right.
Installation came in early June 2025, with dry weather and long days. Straight walkways are easy. Curves, edges along rock beds and the transition into the lawn take patience. The work ran over a couple of days because of the size and the number of separate areas.
The control joints stayed as clean lines, and the rock borders and lawn edges were left crisp. More examples of this kind of work are on our walkway coating page.
Tidal Wave Evolution is a light flake with blue, grey and white chips. Next to the blue-grey siding and the teal patio umbrellas it looks like it was picked for this house, because it was. In bright sun it reads almost white. Up close the blue comes forward.
Light colors work well outside. They stay cooler underfoot than dark ones, and the flake pattern hides dust, pollen and dried water spots between rinses. If you are trying to choose between light and dark for your own place, our styles and colors page shows the full range.
People often search for epoxy when they want a coated patio. Outdoors, typical epoxy has two problems. It is rigid, so it cracks when the slab moves through freeze-thaw, and it yellows in sunlight. What we install is Certified Penntek polyurea, and both of those are where it earns its keep.
The basecoat is flexible and moves with the concrete instead of fighting it. You can see that in the Penntek Stretch Test. The topcoat has FadeLock™, which passed a 16-hour QUV accelerated UV test, so a light color like Tidal Wave won't amber over the summers. The flake itself is UV stable too.
The bond is chemical, using a silane adhesion promoter, at over 1,300 PSI. Before the coating comes up, the concrete will come up. Every floor gets a limited lifetime warranty backed by Penntek, and the registration is filed on every job.
Bothell sits at the north end of Lake Washington along the Sammamish River, and a lot of yards here are framed by tall evergreens. That means shade, needles and surfaces that stay damp from October to May. Algae and moss love bare concrete. A sealed, non-porous surface gives them nothing to grip, and a hose clears most of it.
If you want to see what we do inside a garage, look at our Bothell garage floor coatings page or a Bothell garage we finished in Mount Everest. For more on patios and other outdoor slabs, read our post on coating patios, basements and driveways.
Yes. We quote the areas together and use the same flake on all of them so the whole property matches. Bigger jobs with many separate sections can run longer than one day, and we tell you the schedule up front.
The full flake broadcast leaves a light texture under the topcoat, which helps underfoot when it is wet. Like any outdoor surface, wet leaves and moss on top of it can still be slick, so a quick rinse in fall helps.
Algae needs a porous surface to hang onto. The polyaspartic topcoat is non-porous, so growth sits on top and rinses off with a hose or a soft brush instead of staining the concrete.
Want your walkways and patio to match? Book a free in-home quote or call 425-226-6085. Sheldon runs the installs and Nicole handles scheduling, so you'll talk with the owners from start to finish.
Here's just a few of our previous projects.
