“Turning Over a New Leaf” – A cement skim coat
Sometimes, a change in color can be enough to dress up a deck. That’s exactly what this homeowner was hoping for when she contacted us.
She wanted to make some changes to her front and back patios and was tired of plain gray concrete. She contracted us to lay down a new cement skim coat over both patios and then stain them a light rust color.
A cement skim coat can be a good economic option for a decorative concrete project. It was perfect for this one as the homeowner wanted to keep it simple.
A cement skim coat can also transform an area into something new and beautiful in less time than some of our other decorative concrete options.
Another economical option would have been to apply color directly to the existing concrete patio. This would skip the steps where we first lay down the cement skim coat.
A direct acid stain isn’t always an option, however, and it wouldn’t work for this project because of the color she selected. The gray color of the existing concrete would have interfered too much with the final color of the stain.
As a direct acid stain color is translucent the base color of the concrete influences the final color of the project. Lighter stain colors are difficult to create with a direct acid stain, since the existing concrete floor’s gray color is just too dark to start with.
The best option in this project is to start over with a clean slate. A cement skim coat makes this possible as mix in a much lighter color with the cement, covering up the darker gray underneath.
Before laying down the cement skim coat we had to prepare the area. Sometimes, preparation isn’t limited to cleaning the existing concrete; we also need to remove things from the immediate area.
In outdoor projects, this can include patches of grass and flower beds that butt against it. We need to be able to reach the vertical faces of the existing concrete pad as we roll the concrete overlay mixture over the edges.
This process completely covers all the visible areas of the concrete, and grass and flower beds can get in the way. Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry this time. While there were flower beds bumping up against the front patio, we were able pull them back without too many problems.
Applying a cement skim coat can be faster than other types of concrete overlays, which helps as we always have to keep in mind the weather and our surroundings.
It was Autumn and we had to deal with a lot of falling leaves. While we were laying down the overlay material and waiting for it to dry we had to continuously pick out leaves that fell onto the patio decks.
Thankfully, leaves don’t do a whole lot of damage to wet concrete overlays, especially compared to rain or footprints, whether from people or pets; it’s usually easy to pick them out and smooth over the areas they touched.
Even though it was a small job, the final result was very nice. We replaced the old, gray, drab concrete with a new, lighter surface. The changes really helped to dress up both areas in the front and back of the house.
