Marissa,
We are going to do the same thing. There are quite a few on here that did that. Check out Louisiana Pool. His is great.

John

Mosaics and Pebbletec - according to the Pebbletec installer and the pool builder - is not an ideal combination - I think because the pebbles are too large. I used pebblefina, which is closer in consistency to regular plaster (i.e., smooth) with my mosaics with no problem.

Our PB said the same thing :-(
I now wonder if I can incoporate my little geiko in the decking now...

Keith-2209. That's good news, I was really sorry to hear we couldn't do it. But again now I am thinking that PB just doesn't want to bother. We've chosen Satin matrix from Wetedge so should be ok, right? Will follow your advice and insist on my little geiko on the shallow shelf. Thanks!

Yes you can do your gecko,just work with your builder to select a grout color that works best.If possible try to have it set a few day's before your plaster date to protect it from being knocked loose to easily.Good Luck

marisa-

Hello. Yes. It is possible to add mosaics with pebble. Our pool is the "Louisiana Pool" mentioned above. We set our mosaics prior to plaster as recommended above. This way the plaster crew only has to plaster up to the outside edges of the mosaic and not have to worry about the joints inside the mosaic itself. Just pick a mortar color that will look OK with the mosaic itself and you are good to go.

One word of caution....even with the mosaics set ahead of time, we almost lost 2 mosaics during plaster. As the plaster was poured and spread around, some of the mosaics were covered up and if it wasn't for us being around that day pointing out this fact, the mosaics would have found a new home underneath the plaster out of sight!

Also, remember the size and shape of each mosaic. Some of the mosaics will get covered by plaster and during the "digging out" process, the plaster crew did not know sometimes what they were exposing and how big it was. We have a large blue crab that is missing the ends of some of its legs because they were covered in plaster and the plaster crew did not know how big it truly was. We had 42 mosaics total in our pool design and ended up with 41 when finished.....we lost one somewhere underneath the plaster!

Hope this helps!

Now that you mention it, I recall that here was an poster of yore - willweeverbedone -that ended up with a septopus after plaster (i.e., his octopus lost one of it's legs).

trhought and arielitas mom: Tooooo funny!! Great advice though, I would probably have gone digging the plaster myself to find each little toes of my geiko!!
I have talked to the plaster guys today as well as the masonry guys and they told me they would do it. Plaster guy said the edges of the grout where the mosaic grout and the pebble plaster meet could be a little rough and so we should put it necessarely in the middle of the tanning shelf where your bottom could be (!) as it could feel a little uncomfortable. So he'll go on the side then!

aquariuslady-

Glad your plaster guy was agreeable. We got the runaround from our PB when we mentioned mosaics also but we were persistent. No regrets...none of our mosaics have a rough edge that would be uncomfortable or rough to the touch. We have a mini-pebble finish so that may be the plaster guys concern if you are going with a large pebble finish.

Regarding "digging out the mosaic", we actually started the search for the little guy, a small shell. After one of the plaster guys got out a screwdriver and started stabbing the curing plaster, we gave up the search. Figured the $7 mosaic wasn't worth risking the appearance or integrity of the plaster job!

Just keep a close eye on your gecko during plaster day so he doesn't come up missing toes or becoming lost altogether!

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. Not sure if we will add the turtle at this point or not. Right now I am just heartsick over how our decking turned out. We picked out a stamped concrete pattern. Well, turns out they didn't use the pattern we chose. The texture is fine and so is the color, but no pattern! They just cut huge stress lines. Looks like an ordinary driveway! Think I will add this in another subject and see what others say as far as recourse.

We also would like to use mosiacs in a wet edge product. I have tried to go to Louisana pool but have no luck in finding it.

Sorry Marisa about your decking....I am afraid of all of the "no going back" problems also.

I have ordered from www.swimmingpoolmosaics.com. They were grea": excellent customer sevice, tons of designs (for steps, walls, even decking) and they are having a 25% off sale right now.

Marisa-

Sorry to hear about your stamped concrete. I would ask for a steep discount on the concrete job or I would ask for the PB to make it up to you somewhere else, such as an upgrade in automation systems or something else you may have wanted but thought it was out of your budget..

pool-envy

Here's a link to our pool...the Louisiana pool you mentioned above.

Hope this helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Pool in Louisiana

Marissa- do you have photos of your finished pool you can add? Did you stick with the colors you mentioned?