Everywhere you go you would see concrete floors. In this modern day and age, you might be surprised by how much the concrete flooring industry had grown into trendy construction projects. Visit Policrete if you’d like to know more about polished concrete.
It is just right to give new life to the cold and grey cement floors by adding some style to them. Tosya’ get to know each of the popular concrete flooring designs that had taken properties by storm (not literally). You can prepare your floor for any stylish design by using liquid screed for levelling it up.
Here is a quick look at what you are going to learn today:
- Polished concrete
- Scored concrete
- Stamped concrete
- Colored concrete
Decorative concrete: The basic styles you have to know
The 1900s gave birth to decorative concrete. Je of the earliest methods to design concrete floors is coloring or waxing which soon gave way to the practice of staining the concrete. Soon other methods as stenciling and stamping where patterns emerge from a plain, natural concrete mix.
Do not forget one of the oldest processes in which concrete floors became patterned and produced decorative aspects, such as scoring.
Let’s tackle each of these styles and trends, starting off with the most basic of these methods, the polished concrete.
Polished concrete
Polished concrete is simply a plain concrete flor. Its natural aesthetic of having a unified, single slab makes its decorative element. There is no need for using complex tools or massive machinery to run over the slab and reveal a decorated surface.
You will get a simple, but stunning floor by applying polishing methods. A typical method is with dry surface grinding on the floor. It results in a shimmering, flawless surface because the grinding machine uses diamond-plated discs that give the floor a gem-like glimmer. Your floor should be expertly polished by Concrete Polishing Seattle professionals to have perfect results.
Textured concrete
There are several techniques installers use to create texture on concrete. The main idea here is to utilize the textures and make them a decorative function.
For today’s list, it is decided to group different techniques and categorize them under textures. Although textured concrete would have a more distinct style, however, there are overlapping applications and terms that can have a related style to another.
For example, stamped concrete, let’s talk about it, first.
1- Stamped concrete
Stamping patterns on the concrete floors are designs that resulted from pressing a decorated mat over the freshly poured concrete. When that cures the patterns emerge.
Now, it has both visual and tactile decoration. The stamped patterns give s the floors distinct texture as well, though not the prominent but you would see a certain shape that gives added traction on the surface.
2- Scored concrete
What is concrete scoring? No this is not the numbers you see on the street sidewalk written by kids who play hopscotch, not that type of score.
The scored concrete is a traditional way of adding cut lines giving a distinct form to the slab and allowing resistance from cracking due to contraction. This is different from the expansion joints, though. The main purpose of scoring lines is to create decorative concrete flooring with aesthetics as the main goal.
The resulting effect of score lines is added depth and texture to the plain concrete. A saw cutter is used to create the scoring lines, compared to stamped which uses rubber mats.
Same with stamped patterns, the scored lines add texture to the surface which enhances the slip resistance on the floor.
3- Knockdown texture
The knock-down spray finish is probably the most popular textured finish. Another name for this is classic spray finish which is often used among pool decks.
4- Exposed aggregate
Exposed aggregate is an expert’s favorite. Installers love creating this type of decorative floor that allows them to control and choose how much texture to reveal on the surface.
So, as the term reveals to you, the finish layer of the concrete floor uses an aggregate mix. You would then see the mix of glass shards, pebbles, tile or ceramic pieces, gravel, small stones, and silica sand emerging on top of the floor. This gives a sandy-like surface. It gives you a feel of the innovative yet natural, raw look of floors.
Colored concrete
Last is colored concrete. Under this application you got the stained concrete, dyed and painted.
Among these pigments, staining has the most natural way of adding color. The process is called stains and it is not a traditional way of painting a surface. Staining uses a method where water or acid as carriers is used to dilute the pigments and makes them absorbed by the concrete slab.
The colors soaked the core of the slabs locking in the colors within the pores of the concrete. This method makes the coloring stays longer unlike ordinary paint that washes away when exposed to heavy traffic.
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