Decorative Concrete Flooring, Concrete Countertops and Concrete Tombstones

Thanks to new advances, concrete is quickly redefining its role in the concrete flooring marketplace. Today, decorative concrete floors can be made durable with coatings applied in a wide variety of finishes and colours offering the home or property owner endless design possibilities. With new tools and practices, it can even acquire the look and feel of brick, slate, tile or cobblestone. Builders and property owners alike are now realizing that decorative concrete coatings can add value, flexibility, and curb appeal to their projects while allowing them to stay within budget.

Decorative Concrete was usually limited to a mason scoring a flagstone-like design, or embedding sticks, leaves and even impressing coffee cans into the surface to achieve a desired effect. Today, the leading edge of concrete is a process called Decorative Concrete Coatings or Concrete Overlays. This involves re-coating old pitted ugly grey concrete with a polymer modified cement material by either troweling, spraying, or stamping it with concrete imprinting mats or concrete stamping mats, copied from actual brick or stonework. When the application is complete, the product is then coloured or acid stained and sealed,  providing greater stain and weather resistance. The result is a surface that combines the beauty of masonry with the durability of concrete. There are over 40 different colours to choose from, ranging from natural earth tones to bright pastels. Pattern choices include slate, brick, cobblestone, tile, flagstone and more.

“It’s an exciting time to be in this business. Anyone who has been to see Disney World, Six Flags Amusement Parks, or Las Vegas, has probably walked all over those cobblestone streets, slate or brick sidewalks for hours on end, never realizing that it was actual concrete”. Unfortunately, people on our continent are often the last to get access to these new advances in decorative concrete flooring. “Decorative concrete can be stronger and more chemical resistant than ordinary concrete with a higher cement content, advanced reinforcement materials, surface hardeners and protective sealers”.