Concrete floors – Decorative concrete for home flooring

Concrete floors are a great option if you want your home interiors to be in harmony with furniture,walls, accessories and all.

                Photo Credits : Les Stockton

Let me clear many wrong notions one has about concrete floors -
Concrete flooring is dull and gray, limited to outdoors and industrial surfaces, and generally very cold and uninviting. But this is far from being true!

Did you know that decorative concrete can be made to imitate natural surfaces like marble and wood ? Lets check  out all this and more on how concrete floors  can make your interiors vibrant and lively!

                    Photo Credits: Photo Credits: Supremecrete

What are concrete floors made up of?

Concrete is a mixture of cement, water and aggregate, when dried becomes hard and looks like stone. Concrete floors are durable and can be used in homes, industries, driveways, parking areas, retail floors and other heavy traffic areas as it is tough and resistant to wear and tear.

Types of Concrete Floors

• Stained concrete floors

  Special stains and acids are used which chemically react with the  concrete to achieve a blotchy and speckled look. These stains etch and bond color into the concrete surface. Using this technique, a variety of colorful textures and designs can be used to created on the concrete floor.

• Polished concrete floors

  Concrete flooring is treated using a chemical densifier. Then it undergoes 12 steps of grinding and polishing. Diamond and resin grits are used for this.Polished concrete flooring has a glossy look. This is ideal for retail floors asthe area looks neat and tidy, is easy to clean and is less porous i.e. it prevents water, oil and other chemicals from penetrating the surface.

• Sealed concrete floors

  Plain concrete floors can be sealed using a coat of tinted sealing solvents either water based or solvent based. Water based sealers are recommended for interiors. Sealing makes the concrete floor surface non-porous and durable when applied in thin layers.

• Scored concrete floors

  After the applied concrete stain dries away, shallow-cuts are made on  existing concrete surfaces to show tile grout lines,geometric designs and patterns like plain squares, diamond shapes,concentric circles or a mosaic.

• Painted concrete floors

  Plain concrete floors can be made beautiful by painting. Apply primer, and choose paint specific for concrete applications. You could paint an innovative design of your choice in the center. You can even buy stencils that are meant for floor applications. A combination of stained and scored concrete flooring can be made to resemble natural surfaces like wood and marble.

Advantages of Concrete Floors

Concrete is strong, durable, and cost effective for a variety of applications including floors, walkways, patios and driveways. Concrete flooring is inexpensive. In fact, decorative concrete may  be less expensive as compared to other materials like marble, wood, granite etc. Concrete floors are easy to maintain and clean. Other types of  floors chip, fade, peel and need to be replaced every 15 years. During replacement, the waste that is dumped is not Eco-friendly. Since concrete flooring lasts a life time, you can avoid the waste that comes with replacing floors made of  other materials. Decorative concrete make your floors look elegant and well maintained.