Concrete Coatings

Concrete artist Emily McClintick has launched a new website showcasing her work. These images are just a taste of what you'll find on the Concrete Portfolio page of the website.

Having an opportunity to see the sealing part of our business from a manufacturer's point of view is priceless. So when Doug Carlton sat down with Bert Adams of Glaze 'N Seal to ask him his point of view on sealing concrete, the results were better than he could have dreamed.

Here are a few products designed specifically to help cool down exterior concrete surfaces.

Are you seeing spots? How to get rid of spots when adding color to your microtoppings.

Rachel Romanu, communications coordination at Mark Beamish Waterproofing, an Anaheim, Calif., specialty floor contractor, wrote us this vivid story about an amphitheater restoration job with a classy chip finish.

West End Commons is a new 91-unit loft development in Oakland, Calif. The two- and three-story townhouses have office space on the ground floor, with living space in the upper levels. Pettigrew’s company, Diamond D Concrete, won the subcontract to clean and clear-coat 40,000 square feet of concrete slab floors.

According to Paul Koury, president of Westcoat Specialty Coating Systems, one of the company’s recent projects was the green rooms of the Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville, Tennessee.

The BoHouse Café in Dubai gives off an artsy vibe with its eclectic crowd and creative dishes, and the restaurant's decor is right in line. On the café's ground floor, swirling rainbow stripes, sparkling clouds and colorful disks and hearts pop against a radiant white background.

The U.S. Highway 80 Corridor in southwest Jackson, Miss., is one of those aging main drags that could use some aesthetic improvements. To the relief of many locals, much-needed changes are being made.

At a Justice, Just for Girls retail store under construction in Charlotte, N.C., Jason Burke and his small crew toss colored confetti as high in the air as the store’s high ceiling will allow. The confetti — 1/4-inch acrylic latex chips — lands in random patterns on the still-wet coated concrete floor.

Hats off to Jeff Bach of Bach Custom Coatings of Oregon City, Oregon, for being the concrete highlight of the recent Street of Dreams, an annual showcase of new luxury homes in Portland that was held this past summer. This was the third Street of Dreams Bach has participated in.

As high-performance coatings become more commonplace in decorative applications, so do the problems associated with using them. Unlike acrylic sealers, high-performance coatings (polyurethane, epoxy, polyaspartic and polyurea) are not as forgiving when it comes to application, or more specifically, reapplication.

Coping with midday desert heat, Glendale, Ariz., company Excalibur Designs in Concrete recently donated its time and labor to complete a decorative Flattoo project for Dos Rios Elementary School.

For decorative concrete artisans, an exciting new direction for polyaspartic coatings is countertops and sinks. One contractor, Dave Paterson of Desert Canyon Epoxy Floor Coatings, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has elevated the technique he uses for commercial floors to counter level.

Wanting attractive outdoor concrete that would hold up to heavy use, San Antonio’s brand new Mission Trail Baptist Hospital called upon Ramiro Chavez and San Antonio-based All Ready Services.

First came the revolution. The decorative concrete wave swept the concrete construction trade not so long ago, churning up myriad visual concepts and the materials that made them happen. As the wave receded, decorative concrete concepts, methods and materials entered an evolutionary phase.

I firmly believe that the lifeblood of our industry is new and innovative products that continue to move the decorative market forward. A close second, the oxygen of our industry, is word-of-mouth advertising by satisfied clients who have had their expectations met.

High-performance or high-build coatings offer a higher level of performance than thin-build sealers. A brilliant insight, I know. But in reality, the statement often sums up most of what many people know about high-performance coatings compared to thin-build sealers.

It’s a fact we have to face — everything ages. And colored concrete is not immune. Sometimes it fades to a soft, mellow color, but often it just becomes dull and lifeless. Or worse, later repairs and additions don’t match.

AquaFlex, a proven resilient coating, is in demand among luxury hotels in Las Vegas, including Mandalay Bay, which has used it twice, and the Four Seasons, an iconic, art deco-inspired hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

Surface prep is not the most creative part of a decorative concrete project, but it’s also rarely the same old grind.

Reminiscent of nothing so much as the surface of Jupiter, this rich swirling effect is guaranteed to take any floor up a notch.

When fire stations are upgraded, contractors must complete improvements while minimally disrupting operations and firefighters’ access to equipment. Oftentimes, the return-to-service window of products used is paramount to completing this task, especially when coating and sealing concrete apparatus bays.