Exposed aggregate look vs maintenance effort?

We poured an exposed aggregate deck around our pool four summers ago and honestly the maintenance talk gets overblown. The first year I was out there with a leaf blower every other day because the texture does catch leaves and debris more than smooth concrete would. After that I settled into a routine of blowing it off weekly during swim season and a pressure wash twice a year, once in spring and once before we close things up. Takes me maybe an hour each time for about 900 square feet.

The sealing is the part I'd push back on. Our contractor said every year, but I've found every two to three years is plenty if you use a good penetrating sealer instead of the glossy film-formers. The gloss stuff wears funny around the coping and gets slick. The penetrating type you basically roll on and forget about. One five gallon bucket covers a good chunk of my deck and resealing is a Saturday morning job, not a weekend project.

The texture itself has been a win with kids running around wet. I never feel nervous about them sprinting on it like I did at a friend's house with a stamped concrete deck. Where it shows its age is the edges near the flower beds, dirt stains settle into the little pits and need a scrub brush, not just the washer. For a freeform shape like yours, make sure whoever pours it has done curvy forms before. Ours has a couple spots on the big curve where the aggregate exposure looks uneven because the crew rushed that section.

I had a different experience with ours in Frisco and I'd push back a little on the 'just blow it off weekly' take. Our old deck was exposed pea gravel and by year three the sealer started flaking in patches near the steps where the sun hits hardest. Once that happens you're looking at stripping and resealing the whole slab, not spot fixing, and that was a full weekend job with a rented buffer. Cost me about as much as I'd saved on the original install versus going with pavers.

The other thing nobody warns you about is how it feels underfoot. Kids running to the pool with wet feet ended up with scraped toes the first summer. We threw a rug down by the steps but that kind of defeats the look. When we redid the patio section last year we went with large format pavers instead. If a section stains or shifts I pull two or three pavers and reset them, no resealing the entire surface. Sweep it, occasionally rinse it, done. For a freeform pool the curves will look great either way, but I'd at least price out pavers against the exposed aggregate before committing, because the resealing cycle is real if you actually want it looking like the day it was poured.

One thing I'd throw in since you're in Texas, the heat. My in-laws have exposed aggregate in San Antonio and some of that river rock stuff gets brutal on bare feet in July. Depends alot on what stone the batch yard uses, lighter pea gravel stays way cooler than the dark stuff. Worth asking your supplier what they'd be shooting into the mix before you commit. Also on the freeform part, curvy forms are harder than they look. Ask to see photos of past pours from the actual crew, not just the sales guy.

We did our exposed aggregate ourselves a few years back and the thing that saved us on the curves was a surface retarder you spray on right after the pour. We did a test board first, then sprayed the whole slab and just rinsed with a hose the next morning. The exposure came out way more even than my first attempt where I tried washing it by feel. If your contractor is doing a freeform shape, ask if they use one, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of getting a consistent look around a bend.

Update: I showed the surface retarder idea to my concrete guy and he's on board, doing a test pour first just to be safe. So the finish side feels handled. Still stuck on the heat thing though, that San Antonio comment got me. Did anyone actually pick a lighter stone and notice a real difference on bare feet in August?