Staining & Coloring Concrete

Give your next faux-stone wall vertical project the look of a Spanish vineyard with this effect from Flex-C-Ment.

Mobile mixers, sometimes called volumetric mixers or metered concrete, offer a variety of benefits to decorative concrete contractors, including only paying for what is used, eliminating hot loads, readily allowing mix design changes on-site, labor savings, admixture additions and color batching.

This golf course was going to be on national TV, and its owners wanted it to look good. Decorative concrete helped get it ready for its closeup.

The remodel of Miami Carol City High School in Florida a couple of years ago included the installation of an outside amphitheater, topped with a stencil design of the team’s logo, a giant “Chiefs” head.

Concrete dyes are tailor-made for color adjustment on staining jobs, and on their own, they offer an endless array of colors. So release your inner artist and give 'em a try!

The Decorative Concrete Council, a specialty council of the American Society of Concrete Contractors, recognized the winners of its ninth annual Decorative Concrete Awards competition Jan. 17 at the World of Concrete in Las Vegas.

RicoRock Inc., a leading manufacturer of residential pool waterfalls in the U.S., has hundreds of dealers, but Margaritaville’s owners wanted to work directly with RicoRock because of the scope of the project and the company’s more than 30-year history of creating waterfalls.

Acid-stained concrete has been popular for decades. The process of acid staining is well documented, as are the key precautionary items to look for before and during application. Thanks to real-world experience, continuing education and better specifications, issues with acid stains have been greatly reduced.

The techniques featured in this beloved annual feature may give you the look you’re after for finishing that one job. Or, they may provide the spark you need to come up with something new.

The finished floor of this art center brings in the arts wherever applicable. The new floor was one of the major changes to the space, and it presented the perfect opportunity to showcase local talent in artists who could work with concrete. Instead of creating a neutral floor, we went for bright and vibrant.

Surface preparation is a commonly used term in the decorative concrete industry. An argument can be made that it might even just be the most used term in the industry. We hear or read about it most often when dealing with overlays and stains. Grind, scarify, acid etch, etc.

A few colors of dye, some common butcher paper and a little creativity are all it takes to get this handsome mottled finish.

In his 68 years, Jim Vermillion has mastered many skills: military officer, airline pilot, inventor, seagoing kayak adventurer, business owner.

But he hasn’t been able to get the hang of retirement.

It’s possible for concrete to have stone-like qualities without trying to be stone. It’s possible for concrete to be random and variegated like the knots and grain in wood without trying to be that wood. It’s possible for concrete to develop a visually active graphic patina like copper without it being, you guessed it, copper.

One of the most influential theories of math is called the Cartesian coordinates. The adjective, Cartesian, refers to the French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes who published this idea in 1637. Cartesian coordinates are the foundation of analytic geometry.

Ryan Neal of SBR Concrete was hired by a former client to create a basement floor that had to be not only easy to clean, but also unique. The end result was a floor made with hand-shaped rectangular "stones," each individually colored so that no two would look exactly the same.

Three more ways to get the look of acid stain without the hassle.

Mike Riggs is a guy who can say that he really did grow up in the concrete business. His first job was for Progressive Concrete Works, a concrete company his father started in 1954 in Phoenix, Arizona.

A sophisticated design on a concrete floor made by cutting a series of straight lines into the floor.

The Concrete Color Maintenance System, from Newlook Coatings and Stains, is a solid-color, water-based stain that penetrates the surface of porous concrete to stain it to almost any color desired. “It’s like integralcolored concrete, only more perfectly colored,” says Sonny Baird, a partner in Newlook.

A funny thing happened on the way home from the grocery store, says Troy Lemon, president of Cornerstone Decorative Concrete in Holland, Michigan. It all started when he and his son, Josh, stumbled upon an art studio in their own tiny village of Fennville.

Have you ever gotten that early-morning or late-night call from an unhappy owner telling you that the color is lighter than they wanted … or darker … or does not match from one pour to the next? If you haven’t been on the receiving end of one of those calls, good for you! If you have, then you know what we are talking about.

Mexico's decorative concrete construction industy lags behind the decorative industry in the United States, but staining and other techniques for coloring concrete are helping this contractor flourish south of the border.