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Novice stampers are prone to making a few common mistakes. Some have to do with planning the job. Others have to do with misunderstanding the materials, while still others are simply a lack of familiarity with manipulating stamps and skins. Here’s an opportunity to learn the easy way.
The maintenance for polished concrete is simple. Basically, you sweep it regularly, scrub it on a schedule with appropriate cleaners and burnish it a few times a year. This sounds simple, right? In some cases, this works out perfectly. In others, not so much.
An amazing thing happened in 2011. Twitter users in Washington, D.C., tweeted news of an earthquake as it was happening, warning folks in New York City 30 seconds before they even felt it.
Today’s lesson is one each decorative concrete professional must heed: Creating the perfect project sample is the path to your artistic future.
I love color. Bright, vibrant, fun colors that pop. Deep, rich tones that soothe. Soft, gentle tones with minimal contrast. Thinking about color always leads to texture, mottling, layering, variegation or marbling. I cannot think of one instance when I would want a paintlike solid color on one of my projects. To me, color and depth go hand in hand.
At first, everything seemed perfect as my salesman and I finished setting up our booth for the annual home design and remodeling show in Visalia, Calif. Our exhibit location was ideal, our stamp and stain samples strategically located. The weekend crowd was near maximum capacity and everything seemed ripe for booking plenty of new accounts.
Turning a profit in today’s construction industry is no accident. This is why it is essential — now more than ever — to practice the strong fundamentals that every successful business is built on. I witnessed a perfect example of such a business this fall and it made me rethink my effort as a decorative concrete professional.
If I were a contractor I would take “preexisting” projects over new projects every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Expectations of what a floor should look like will vary from client to client. A client’s views will be shaped by other stained floors seen in person or in photographs. Although all of these things can affect a client’s expectations, the greatest influence on their flooring decision should come from the concrete professional.
Polished and decorative concrete floor installations accounted for only about a quarter of our business as of the start of this year. Most of our revenues were coming from cleaning, maintenance and restoration services.
