Concrete Decor's Current Articles

For as long as he can remember, Joshua Thiel has had a passion for creating and building while also finding innovative solutions to problems. After going to school for mechanical engineering and spending years fabricating and learning how to work with different materials, it seemed like a natural fit to dive into concrete.

Call them fillers or call them sealants (people often use the terms interchangeably), but it’s a good bet if you’re involved with concrete work, you’ve run into determining what to do with the joints.

Inspired by the pro bono work done on the Bannister House last year during the Concrete Decor Show in San Diego, Jodi Cain of Quest Building Products began looking for ways she and her fellow employees could use their skills and services to give back to their community in Southern California.

A huge national remodeling project for the department store chain has kept concrete polishing contractors busy this year.

When I’m planning a project with a geometric tile pattern using concrete stain, I always think of the arcade game Q*bert. Many of you probably already know how much of a geek I am but let me remind you of my age. Yes, I grew up playing Q*bert, the original version. The idea that you can take three connected “squares,” change the color for all three and make them appear to be two walls and a floor is pretty cool to me.

When you live in Tennessee and you’ve got clients with a bare kitchen who also like to entertain and enjoy their adult beverages, a Jack Daniels theme seemed like a natural fit.

Berkeley architect Fu-Tung Cheng combines ancient custom with modern design.

Achieve pure, consistent color while providing your customers a highly reflective surface. Ninety-nine percent of the cement used in the United States is gray. The other 1 percent is a startlingly bright white color. Because it represents such a small share of the market, many contractors know little about white cement concrete.

The trick is to let the material set with an open (mag trowelled) surface for about one hour for a standard one and one half inch thick top (Temp. dependent), this allows the Polymer to tighten up and lose some of its stickiness.

Unlike a chalk line, the tape always provides a visible line to follow. Scoring tape extends between two points and adhere's firmly to the surface. Once the tape is in place, simply following the black line with the saw to produce a clean, straight line.

Just because a slab requires control joints doesn't mean the joints have to be straight. Here's how to bend them to your will.

There’s nothing like a nice curve, but advance planning is essential. Ask any man and he will confess the more curve the better. Ask any women and she will agree curves are good as long as they flow — no bulging. Ask a decorative stamping crew and they will agree curves can cause loss of sleep at the design and installation phase.

The days of the straight-lined concrete walkway, patio or driveway are waning. Designs that incorporate sweeping curves or tight radiuses are more popular now than ever.

Whether it's knick-knacks or corporate logos, embedding or imprinting objects into concrete gives an unmistakably addition to the home or business. Here are some tips on how to add this finishing touch to an interior or exterior project.

“Cookie Cutters”  stamps offer unique characteristics and advantages not found among other stamping systems. In talking to various contractors who use aluminum stamps regularly, Concrete Decor found several valid reasons today’s concrete contractors should consider the aluminum stamps as a valuable tool for decorative concrete applications.

A former computer software developer makes a career change and finds success in stamping concrete.

Shotcrete is not a physical product. It cannot be touched or held in your hand. Shotcrete is a process or verb. It is the action of placing concrete to achieve high strengths and low permeability.

fter an afternoon spent walking around the Rocketown campus, we saw a great opportunity to not only enhance the area but also showcase the unlimited possibilities of concrete.

Radial stamps, multipiece tools that create circular and curved patterns, have earned stamp manufacturers a round of applause.