Vertical Artisans – Creative Concrete Online Education
The pictures below tell the story a lot better than I can.
If you’re creative and want to expand your business into a unique artistic craft then you have to check out this site.
Nathan Giffen based in Chicago created Vertical Artisans as an online school teaching the art of concrete carving. Memberships to the site entitle [...]
Exterior Concrete Overlay
Last week I visited the Sawgrass Beach Club in Ponte Vedra Florida. 99% of the concrete at the club was covered with a concrete overlay including stairs and walls.
The project was completed over 10 years ago and still in excellent condition. There are a few spots that could use some small patches. Considering the exposure [...]
Cleaning Paraphernalia
I’ll try and be brief with this post about tools you need to maintain floors.
1. Mops – Microfiber mops with a heavy pad are an excellent tool for dry or wet mopping decorative concrete floors. Use for both residential and commercial floors. Rayon mop heads work well with cleaning products. Should I mention a bucket?
2. [...]
Concrete Floor Finishes
In my last few posts I went over proper methods to maintain floors and some products that work for specific floors.
The key is to maintain your concrete floor finishes and sealers. All floors will wear down. The wear is due to foot traffic and frequently using the wrong products and methods for maintenance.
Residential floors have [...]
Decorative Concrete Cleaning Product Recommendations – #4 In a series
Restaurant Floor Maintenance
Decorative concrete has become a critical part of restaurant floor plans. Architects worldwide are projecting restaurant interior design with stains, overlays and polished concrete. If you don’t maintain your floor correctly it will cost you a lot of $$$. So read on.
The battle is against heavy abuse. Lots of foot traffic, chairs and [...]
Decorative Concrete Cleaning Product Recommendations – #3 In A Series
This post is mainly for retailers, but, hey we all can learn. The next few posts will pertain to restaurant and residential floor maintenance and a few of the processes and equipment for proper maintetnance and floor cleaning.
There are a lot of cleaning products on the market. Some work great but some don’t. I’m [...]
Decorative Concrete Cleaning Product Recommendations – #2 In Series
A friend of mine Paul Huneck, owner of Hudson Concrete in Long Island City, New York installed an amazing decorative concrete floor in Manhattan. This floor is sensational. It is the floor for Rita Hazan Hair Salon on Fifth Avenue.
About a month after the salon opened the floor started to get this smeared look and [...]
Decorative Concrete Cleaning Product Recommendations – #1 in a series
I get a lot of people asking for cleaning product recommendations for their decorative concrete floors. Especially from retailers and restaurant owners.
So I thought maybe I would do a series about products to use and systems for maintaining decorative concrete floor coatings.
First – it is a lot cheaper to do proper floor maintenance than to [...]
Choosing Color for Concrete Overlays
I made the samples below to give you a comparative perspective of actual color for concrete overlays. Visit our video library to learn more at www.metrocrete.tv
The samples are made with a white mix with a powdered pigment (Iron Oxides). If I had used a gray concrete the colors would have been more subtle.
Notice that [...]
Basement Flooring Ideas
The basement floor shown in the picture below is a simple skim coat colored with waterbased dyes. Application can be viewed by video at www.metrocrete.tv
It really is the ultimate floor if your looking for basement flooring ideas. This floor had wall to wall carpeting which was removed. Wall to wall carpeting just doesn’t cut it [...]
SurfaceTone – Gold Coast Connecticut’s Concrete Colorist
About 4 years ago Dan DiLeonardo evolved from remodeling into Decorative Concrete. His company SurfaceTone based in Norwalk, Connecticut is located in the heart of Lower Fairfield County which is referred to as the Gold Coast. View our application videos at www.metrocrete.tv
Though I know a lot about Dan and how well he runs his [...]
Decorative Concrete Kits and Bold Rugs – The Perfect Combo
If you read through a lot of my blog posts you’ll notice that I preach about decorative concrete floors with area rugs.
Though decorative concrete floor coatings are just that – decorative – most people don’t need or want highly advanced artistic floors. Basic earth tones of grays [...]
How The Internet Saved Concrete
2000 years ago the Romans were living it up. Drinking wine, eating mutton chops, hanging poolside, mixing concrete, building cities.
All this was thanks to some creative entrepreneurs who learned how to mix ash, limestone and water to create concrete. They made some awesome buildings. The concrete enabled them to engineer and construct cities. [...]
Restaurant Interior Design
I stopped by a local restaurant today to check out decorative concrete floors that hadn’t been well maintained in year. Application options can be viewed at www.metrocrete.tv
They stripped the old wax coats with a mild stripper called Turboforce then applied two new wax coats called Accelerator.
For the restaurant interior design they applied the same [...]
