There are lots of advantages to using concrete for flooring in your home or in your patio area. It’s durable and extremely sturdy, but also concrete has the potential to be really beautiful. Its appeal can be enhanced with color and patterns from concrete stamping, staining and intricate designs which can really help elevate the concrete in your space. That said, like all materials, concrete can suffer wear and tear, and proper maintenance is essential to prolonging the life of your concrete floor.
Author Archives:
How to Prolong the Life of Your Concrete Floor
There are lots of advantages to using concrete for flooring in your home or in your patio area. It’s durable and extremely sturdy, but also concrete has the potential to be really beautiful. Its appeal can be enhanced with color and patterns from concrete stamping, staining and intricate designs which can really help elevate the concrete in your space. That said, like all materials, concrete can suffer wear and tear, and proper maintenance is essential to prolonging the life of your concrete floor.
Huntsville Decorative Concrete
Concrete has been prized for thousands of years because it’s both easy to work with and strong. It can be molded into a variety of shapes, whether it’s custom countertops, a patio with organic edges, the deck around an irregular shaped pool, or nearly any other shape. Those are all horizontal surfaces, however— and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one plane when it comes to concrete. You can think vertical, too!
Butterfield Color produces a vertical overlay material called Cantera Vertical Wall Mix that is a polymer modified, cementitious overlay that is lightweight and sag resistant. It can be colored like other concrete mixes, and stamped like them, too for strong yet attractive facings that imitate more expensive materials. The overlay system can be applied over pre-existing surfaces and then colored and stamped, making it lightweight and more cost effective than natural stone.
As for the overlay stamps, that’s another way to truly make your project your own. Stamp textures include brick, wood grain, light bark, timber end grain, rock face, weathered edge, and more. You can use a variety of colors and stamp patterns to mimic many natural surfaces, all with durable, affordable concrete.
In fact, local Huntsville, Alabama contractor Steve Thompson formed this wall top using Butterfield Cut Stone Formliners to imitate the texture of the natural stone below while also providing an even, smoother surface that will better meet the resident’s needs. Imagine the possibilities! Not only do we carrying vertical overlay and stone formliner stamps, we carry a full line of color mixes and can offer you advice about which products will best create the effect you’re dreaming of.
With a combination of different textures across horizontal and vertical surfaces, you can take your indoor or outdoor space from dull and plain to a true work of art that will stand the test of time, whether it’s an outdoor kitchen or living space, decorative concrete columns and exterior work on your home or business, or hardscaping around your pool or back yard that go beyond the utilitarian to really wow friends and family.
To find out more about how you can create a similarly stunning space, Find out more about making this happen at your home by calling us at (256) 858-0400.
Chattanooga Decorative Concrete
People often associate concrete with patios and other outdoors spaces, but it’s quickly becoming a hot trend nationwide for indoor spaces, too. If you’re imagining the plain grey floors from your local big box store, though, think again. Acid-staining concrete can give concrete floors beautiful tones and finishes that coordinate with any decor scheme.
Acid stain brings out the detail and texture in concrete much like staining hardwood does for traditional flooring and trim. Acid-stained concrete has become a popular choice for residential floors or even kitchen countertops, giving a look and feel you might ordinarily get only by installing expensive stone like quartz, granite, or marble. You can even select different colors of acid stain to achieve complex inlay looks and unique designs.
Far from being limited to more contemporary looks, acid stained concrete can contribute to a wonderful antique feel in your home, if you so choose, with a beautiful translucence and warmth that can’t be achieved even with more expensive finishes. That’s great news for anyone who has torn up worn-out carpet to find a concrete slab underneath and was unsure how to work with what they have.
Acid stain is simple to apply. It forms a chemical bond with concrete, so it’s more permanent than paint, attaching itself to the top layer of the concrete at a molecular level. You can’t clean it off, making home maintenance a snap. Its simple to apply with spray equipment in a step by step process.
We can advise you on everything from color selection to what type of sealant would work best to protect your finish and keep it looking its best for years to come. For example, despite the glossy look you can achieve with acid stain, there are concrete sealer additives like Butterfield Color Shark Grip that will give extra grip to the floor, which could come in handy in spaces like pool decks.
Our first customers at our Chattanooga location, Tracy and Stacy Wallin, sent us photos of their beautiful closed in garage that they treated with a gorgeous acid stain. They used Kemiko’s Black and Cola Acid Stain with Clemons Concrete Coatings Supreme 25 as their sealer. See for yourself how beautiful acid stained concrete can be!