"A Touch of Black" - decorative concrete floors in your home

January 2010 Job of the Month - This was a small decorative concrete floor project we did in Dallas for a well known T.V. newsperson. The project was for the bottom floor of a three-story loft in an elegant part of uptown and the carpet and stone tile that were on the floor just wasn't doing it for him anymore. He was looking for a color scheme for his new decorative concrete floors that would work with the cool gray color of the walls and the light black shelving that had been installed.

We originally suggested a medium dark brown floor which generally goes with everything but he was looking for something a little darker. We normally try to stay away from dark floors as they can suck up the light in a room, but for smaller projects they can look very elegant. Our Dallas homeowner was set on a dark brown decorative concrete floor with lots of black highlights running through it so that's what we delivered.

After pulling everything off of the floor and disposing of it, we went to work getting this decorative concrete floor installed. Normally we do this by grinding the floor using shrouded (covered) grinders connected to an industrial vacuum cleaner to minimize the dust. At first, everything was going fine during the grinding process then poof! dust started flying everywhere! The vacuum bag had developed a leak, something that had never happened before. We caught it in time before the area got swamped but it shows you just how vigilant you have to be in this line of work. After this, we invested in a bagless Pulse Bac vacuum system which is specifically designed for concrete dust, no bags to break so no way for the dust to leak out.

After prepping the floor we started the overlay mix. As our Dallas homeowner was asking for a darker floor, we began by tinting the normally white overlay material a light brown to push it in the general direction he wanted. We did the standard two coats and after it dried we applied a black water stain to create some of the highlights.

We really like the water stains for our decorative concrete floors as the color is much easier to control than an acid stain. We still see a lot of the veining and variegation that is so popular with acid staining but with the added plus of better color control.

We wrapped up our Dallas, Tx decorative concrete floor project with a concrete sealer that both protects and enhances the stain color. We almost always use solvent based sealers as they are very durable. I think you can agree that the final look works very well with the décor.

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