Concrete floors used to be thought of as unfinished or only for industrial (loft) architecture, but that’s definitely not the case anymore… As a residential architect with a focus on modern design, we hear more and more that our clients are interested in polished concrete floors throughout their home. I even have one client who “could never imagine” she would like concrete floors in her home, and now she loves them!
Another often misunderstood fact is that the decision for concrete floors – over wood floors for example – is usually not made to save money…in many cases polished concrete floors actually cost more than wood or other typical flooring materials. The quality of finish on the concrete floors that we see in all the stunning modern homes on Houzz or Pinterest requires a lot of work and skill.
The Art of Concrete
Today I’m sharing a few minutes – 3 short videos – of the time and care (and certainly skill) that goes into a Finished Concrete Floor… The head mason on our project, Pete, spent almost 12 hours each day for 2 days finishing the concrete floors for our Lantern Ridge House… I told you we have an amazing team building this house!! (Here are a couple previous posts on building the concrete foundation and the details on how it all goes together if you’d like to reference.)
Pouring Concrete:
Note: These floors will have radiant heating and the tubes are tied to the steel mesh… You’ll see many times in this video where the guys are pulling up on the steel mesh -either with their hands or their tools – so that the concrete can get underneath the mesh. The goal is for the mesh and tubing to be basically in the center of the concrete slab.
Art. Skill. and Experience!!
Leveling the Concrete Surface:
Finished Concrete, by Hand:
The process continues (beyond the videos) with more hand troweling, buffing with a large machine once the concrete cures enough to stand on it, and saw-cutting control joints to minimize cracking. As you can see from the photos below, Pete and his team did a beautiful job! The finished concrete floor is glossy enough to reflect the view as if it was glass.
Actually, we think it’s better than beautiful!!
I sure hope there are other #architecturenerds out there who think the art of finishing concrete is as much fun as I do!!?
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