Concrete Decor's Current Articles

Polishable overlays are a popular alternative to polished concrete where the existing concrete slab isn’t a good candidate to be polished. Infilling trenches, patching, spalling and removing existing modular floor coverings often result in a concrete surface that doesn’t meet with customer approval.

Be prepared to see a lot of color and whimsy at the fourth annual Decorative Concrete LIVE! during the World of Concrete Feb. 4-7, 2020 in Las Vegas. On the flip side, also be prepared to appreciate the subtleties and sophistication the same material can offer.

Doing museum-quality work doesn’t always entail fashioning blank backdrops to show items of interest at their best. Sometimes, as is the case of a pollinator-themed playground at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., it involves colorful GFRC carvings that are larger than life.

A practical and less expensive way to create unique surface treatments for enhanced color finishes on concrete is to add color to the concrete sealer.

A shot blaster is the tool of choice for concrete contractors when prepping a surface. Shot blasting gives the surface a rough profile so coatings and sealers will bond snugly with a floor.

The acceptance of glass-fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) has inspired a current trend toward light, thin and delicate concrete furniture.

To illustrate what GFRC can do in furniture form, Jeffrey Girard of The Concrete Countertop Institute describes three projects — a table, a lounge chair and an S chair — that show off the strengths of the material.

Heat is the universal catalyst. Apply heat and things tend to happen faster. Consider what happened the last time you accidentally grabbed a hot plate. I am sure your speed increased dramatically as you looked for a place to put the plate down. The same thing happens with sealers at the molecular level when the temperatures go up.

This wild floor design should tame the outdated notion that epoxies are only for airplane hangers and garage floors.

This issue of blotchy and inconsistent color and gloss created by a sealer is not that uncommon. There are multiple factors that can create this appearance, but the two most common are application — how the sealer was applied — and surface — what the sealer is being applied to in regard to density and porosity.

If you are truly committed to service, not just the initial sale, then you're not through when you're done.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to the finer details of all potential concrete casting surfaces. Instead, this article is intended to help you begin asking the right questions, as well as give you a basic understanding of some of the options. We cannot come up with solutions until we ask the right questions.

The U.S. Green Building Council's research suggests that a quarter of new buildings that have been certified in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program do not save as much energy as their designs predicted, and most do not track ongoing energy consumption. These findings don't generate a lot of confidence among the public in green building.

For those of us who remember how trendy the whole zodiac thing was in the 1970s, it’s fun to see it pop up now and again. Here’s an example, a stained and engraved zodiac pattern on concrete in a Chinese-style restaurant called Temptasian in Vernon, British Columbia.

It doesn’t matter how good your dust recovery system may be, but when it comes to working indoors a dust control barrier system is imperative to maintaining clean and happy customers. ZipWall is the award-winning product that offers an effective method to isolating the dust and debris that’s associated with concrete cutting, profiling, or other applications.

Concrete hoods are an easy sell for customers who are already buying countertops, but this hood - Concrete Jungle’s first - was purchased by a homeowner with a kitchen in mid-renovation who had already committed to granite countertops.

Mark Womack of Monster Constructors in Fort Worth, Texas, inadvertently became something of an expert when two back-to-back clients asked him for concrete work that included fiber optic lights.

Using soy-based materials to strip, stain and seal concrete can be about as healthy as it gets. Concrete artisan Dana Boyer is selling the soy-based line through her concrete contracting outfit, Concretizen. Developed by friends of hers at New Century Coatings and sold by several "private label" resellers, the products have been personalized by Boyer to fit her vision.

There is a huge difference between amorphous silica and crystalline silica as far as your health and your concrete is concerned. The difference between the two is at the atomic level.