What do you get when you cross an artist with a concrete contractor? It’s no joke; you get great decorative concrete floors and pavements. Through the use of a variety of stains, stamps, and techniques, concrete floors are becoming increasingly attractive for home owners.

With the exciting new coloring and texturing technologies now at work, concrete can create a cohesive look that begins with driveways and walks that coordinate with the home’s exterior patios and retaining walls and carry through to the interior.

Decorative concrete is just as pleasing indoors as they are outdoors. Colored and imprinted concrete is an excellent flooring material combining the economy, durability, decorative qualities and strength of concrete. These floors also provide the thermal mass for passive solar heating. From a real estate marketing standpoint, special concrete finishing, both indoors and outdoors, enhances the prestige and value of property.

In addition to adding beauty to a home, decorative flatwork has many environmental benefits.

Resource Efficient. Reduces need for finishes in general, including carpet which is associated with indoor air quality problems.

Energy Performance and Thermal Mass. Thermal mass improves energy performance when appropriately insulated.

Durable. Stained concrete stands up to natural disasters, wind-driven rain, moisture damage, and sun damage. Less replacement means reduced resource requirements.

Cool. Using light- or natural-colored material helps reduce the heat island affect.

Low emitting. Concrete has low VOC emission and does not degrade indoor air quality.

Recyclable. Techniques such as microtopping and polishing allow concrete artisans to change a drab gray in-place concrete slab into a floor of beauty without having to use the natural resources that would be necessary to produce a new slab.

Local. Materials are usually extracted and manufactured locally.

Recycled content. Fly ash, slag cement, or silica fume can substitute partially for cement, and recycled aggregates can replace newly mined gravel.