Vertical & Carved Concrete

Check in and check out three examples of decorative concrete at its finest, in Georgia, Tennessee and California.

Florida’s Miami Beach is a part of the country known for its high real estate prices, but the penthouse condominium sales price of $60 million for the Faena House Saxony Condo set a new high.

Is it redwood or is it concrete? A Sacramento contractor creates a Native American health center with reactive-stained walls

Sisters Cindee Lundin and Chenoa Pickrain were raised on a dairy farm near Perham, Minnesota. Lundin is an expert in faux finishing and horizontal and vertical carved concrete. Pickrain is a graphic designer and photographer.

Being in the construction industry his whole life, Dion Battles made the unsurprising leap to decorative concrete, specifically the vertical carving and theming part of the industry, after the nationwide recession hit the residential building industry hard in 2007.

While swimming pools and road construction projects have been the mainstay of many contractors in the shotcrete industry, a number of shotcrete artists are taking the concrete medium to new levels of creativity and usefulness.

Unlike God almighty who, according to the Bible, created the world, its heavens and all forms of life in six days, the best Troy Lemon and his mortal crew could do was hand-form and carve a concrete replica of the moon in four.

There is more than one way to create a concrete home — and the thin-shell method produces dwellings of unparalleled beauty.

Looking for a way to expand your business’ offerings or add a little more creativity to your life? Either way, the vertical surfaces market may be for you.

Cabela’s, a national retailer of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear, designs its stores with elaborate dioramas of outdoor scenes teeming with life. Besides taxidermists, artists and landscapers, the chain has come to rely on the talents of decorative concrete professionals to help bring these displays to life.

Protective coatings may not deter graffiti artists, but they’ll make cleanup a lot easier.

Beginning painters get so excited by the smorgasbord of shapes, colors and textures they have been learning that they often try to put every trick they know into each of their paintings. This leads to a hodge-podge with no focus.

East Coast met West Coast and “old school” joined up with state-of-the-art hardscape concrete work at an award-winning residential project in Andover, Mass. The three-level backyard spread, including patio, pool, fire pit and surrounding walls, earned project owner New England Hardscapes, of Acton, Mass., an ASCC design award.

Even on the thumb tip of northwest Washington state, decorative concrete is making its mark, thanks to this father-son outfit.

Concrete Coatings is a Sundek dealer owned by Scott Burley, Will's uncle. It's a decorative concrete resurfacing contractor handling pool decks, patios, terraces and other exterior surfaces for commercial and residential customers in metropolitan New Orleans, south Louisiana and other points along the Gulf Coast.

Glass-fiber reinforced concrete and other materials can be molded to make rock structures so natural-looking, even Mother Nature will be fooled.

Everything about the Brawl in the Fall at the 2016 Concrete Decor Show in San Diego was hot, hot, hot— from the record-breaking 100+ degree heat to the sizzling entries that shaped up in the outside lot during show time.

If you are stenciling fresh-poured concrete there may be vertical surfaces you also want to stencil, such as step fronts or the lips around the edge of a patio where you may want the pattern to roll over the edge. Various contractors use different techniques to tackle these challenging surfaces.

The primary design focus of the five year renovation of the J. Paul Getty Museum was to modernize the existing museum, which is a replica of a Roman villa buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and breath new life using decorative concrete.

As demand for vertical concrete work in the residential sector expands, more decorative concrete contractors and artisans are taking on vertical projects with the goal of achieving creative looks.

We here at Concrete Decor always welcome submissions of photos from concrete artisans around the world. When we received a particularly attractive batch from an artist in Argentina, we decided to share them with you.

With a passion for art and a love of sculpting, painting and pottery, Joshua Annis had the opportunity of a lifetime presented to him at a young age and at a time when he had no direction in his life and then along came concrete.

Exposed aggregate finishes are in demand on concrete walls. How do you get that rock to pop? One way is to use a surface retarder.