A welcoming driveway is a very important way of adding your personal touch to the design of your home. Most house decorations take place when a house is fully constructed. However, there are new improvements that allow you to decorate your house from the initial stages of construction. Decorative concrete is a method that has been available for a few years now. This method of home decoration allows you to transform concrete from the plain color it has to a more pleasing and attractive concrete for your construction. The results are usually unbelievable. Many techniques allow you to do this. Integrated colors, dyes, and acid stains are a few examples.
Stamped concrete
Just as the name suggests, this method is all about adding your own stamp or pattern on your home’s layout. Stamped concrete is a very common method of integrating your own touch into a construction. It involves laying down a stamp on wet, freshly laid concrete. This method is mostly preferred for new constructions. It is mostly effective as part of the initial design of the house. However, this does not mean that it is too late for constructions that are already completed. If this is a new idea for you, you will be able to add a stamp to your house design even when you have moved into the home. It will require some extra steps for the stamp integration.
For houses whose concrete has long dried up, the process requires pouring of a new layer of concrete, usually an inch high for the stamp to be place. This will then allow for placing of the stamp on the freshly laid concrete. In addition to the stamp advantage, all the defects on the old surface are covered. However, a disadvantage that accompanies this method is that the cracks on the old surface might force the new surface to crack and shift as well.
Once concrete is laid, the stamps are laid, mostly pounded, on the freshly laid and wet concrete using a tamper. Use of a couple of additional tools makes this process successful.
Stained Concrete
Of the two methods of decoration, stamped and stained concrete, this is the easiest to implement. Stained concrete allows you to add certain colors to the default grey color that cement has. This very simple and efficient process allows you to choose the color of your choice. It might be a single color or multiple of them. Acid stain is the most common type of stain because of the richness of the color produced. It is the most preferred type of stain for that reason. Once this acid mixes with the concrete in certain quantities, the reaction produces grain-like material that has a rich coloring. However, there are certain disadvantages such as revelation of certain defects in the concrete.
To avoid these, acrylic concrete stains and water based stains are used. They produce a more pleasant result than acid stains. They are able to go deep into the concrete and react from the inside instead. The only disadvantage is that the process results in faint and translucent colors.
Stamped and stained concrete require professionals who can assure 100% success without adding more costs to your pockets. They also require much care, especially acid stains. Our company has had many years of experience in this work and we are willing to give you results you will be pleased with.