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It’s more dainty, more elegant, like between silk and cloth with hard-eners. The grays and browns last forever. He also likes to sprinkle color on top of the concrete with a brush to create freckles, just like real stones offer.
After 15 years of heavy tourist traffic along Las Vegas Boulevard, one of the first seamless texture projects in Las Vegas was ready for a facelift.
As with most things in life, a decorative concrete installer faces many choices when it comes to the products and processes he or she uses on a job. Unfortunately, the choice is often made to take the path of least resistance or buy at low cost versus favoring long-term performance and the quality of the project.
Many of history’s most beautiful works of art were created for places of worship. These days, decorative concrete is doing its part to beautify churches across the country.
Proline Concrete Tools receives a lot of requests for custom stamps, but rarely do the patterns end up turning into a nationwide trend.
Back in early 1990s, the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park wanted to emulate cracked mud found in the Serengeti Desert and Proline was up to the task.
Custom Concrete Creations Inc., which sells interlocking, swiveling stamps to fit curved borders, plans to corner a whole new market.
I have identified six steps that all successful hunks of stamped concrete have in common. Bypassing one of the six steps will leave a stamping professional a rung short of a true level of potential. Perfection starts well before any color broadcasts across a wet concrete’s surface, and even well before a ready-mix truck arrives.
Bart Rockett, 46, began working with concrete back in 1987 after joining Patterned Concrete Industries (PCI) and working for one of its local franchises outside of Philadelphia in southern New Jersey.
Before texture stamping, stamping professionals were limited to interlocking stamp patterns and all of the frustration and anxiety that accompany them. Flash forward to 2014, and numerous opportunities exist to showcase your decorative talent, thanks to the many variations of texture stamp tools.
For years, it seemed to me that people thought stenciled concrete was the bastard child of decorative concrete. I never really understood that.
Five veteran contractors and artisans provide insight by explaining where their decorative concrete journeys began, how their skill sets grew and how diversification has affected their careers.
When Bob McDaid began making plans to build iPlay America, his 115,000-square-foot indoor family amusement park in Freehold, N.J., he envisioned flooring to complement two very different settings.
In 2011, the city of Carmel, Indiana, revamped its major roadway, the Keystone Parkway, as part of a multiphase project to lower the grade under six major intersections. This created new interchanges and no traffic lights for north-south traffic over a five-mile stretch, while six new roundabouts managed east-west traffic.
Outdoor kitchens are a popular request no matter where you live, but typically when you read a book or see a television show featuring outdoor kitchens, the contractor is doing them in a warm climate.
SurfEtch from Butterfield Color is a water-based mild surface retarder that, when used with fresh concrete, exposes the sands in the concrete for a unique decorative finish. In addition to its aesthetic appeal, it can add slip resistance and is solvent-free. Best of all, it’s easy to apply for even the beginning contractor.
Great concrete stencil products and top-notch technical support define this hardworking company.
Have you ever been in the process of completing or had just completed what to you was an amazing architectural concrete project only to be told by your client: “It’s not what I was expecting.” “Meh! It looks kind of ‘blah.’ I thought the color would ‘pop’ more.” “I don’t like it.”
During a hot summer in northern Texas, a cool dip in a pool or ride down a water slide can be the perfect remedy, and that’s exactly what you’ll find at Paradise Springs, a new water park that opened for the 2011 summer season at the Gaylord Texan, a Grapevine, Texas, resort owned by luxury hospitality chain Gaylord Hotels.
A beach house floor Ralston’s company recently refurbished in Monterey Bay, Calif. The floor’s crown jewel from a decorative standpoint is a pattern created when randomly placed seaweed stamps, made from real seaweed, were laid in a 3/8-inch fast-setting overlay.
Step-by-step instructions and useful tips from people in the industry who have experimented enough to know what works.
Paul Schneider is one of the lucky people in this world whose hobby and occupation are one and the same: decorative concrete. “Most people don’t think of a hobby as something you make money off of,” he says. But he does it.
Ideal for patios, driveways or other expansive exteriors, this stamping technique is all about subtle variations in color and texture, resulting in a realistic stony finish.
Throughout the nation's gambling capital, signs of rejuvenation are unfolding as tourists with a bit more spending money check in, investors' interest returns and locals get back to work.
Many years in the making and rigorously reviewed by dozens of experts in the field, the much-anticipated 310R-13 Guide to Decorative Concrete was officially published by the American Concrete Institute in December 2013.
Universal Templates manufactures plastic adhesive backed templates/stencils for the decorative concrete industry. The company has 15 different patterns, which can be purchased in 250 sq. ft. rolls (3 ft. wide x 84 ft. long) or in 500 sq. ft. rolls (3 ft. wide x 168 ft. long).
