Decorative Concrete Overlays

When it comes to cementitious overlays, gravity doesn't have to keep you down.

Just as overlays can radically restyle floors and countertops, so too can they transform interior and exterior walls, as well as chimneys, planters, pillars and other upright surfaces. From stamps to stencils, stucco to faux Venetian plaster, vertical overlays allow for a broad variation in styles.

Today's vertical overlays can adhere directly to a wide variety of substrates, including concrete, masonry, ceramic tile, wood, steel and drywall. They range in thickness from paper-thin skim coats to stampable coatings up to four inches deep.

Some products are formulated specifically to go on vertically without sagging, while others can be modified to do so, either by mixing them more thickly or with additives. Still others are designed to be used either horizontally or vertically with no modification in between.

Vertical overlays can be applied through conventional methods such as troweling, rolling or spraying. In general the process for overlaying a wall is the same as for overlaying a floor. But there are new wrinkles to think through, points out Ron Borum, executive vice president of the Miracote division of Crossfield Products Corp. "You have to come up with a delivery system from the bucket to the vertical surface without spilling it on the horizontal surface," he says. "And you've got to figure out a mechanism to get to the vertical surface, usually scaffolding or a traveling stage. Or if you're really smart, you do it on a tilt-up wall when the wall's still down."