Many home owners would like to find a good way to make their house look fresh and new. The most obvious solution is to renovate, but this is a very complex and expensive proposition, one which most people don't want any part of. Sometimes you can achieve good results with a relatively minor cosmetic procedure, though. This is where hiring a contractor to do some work with decorative concrete comes in.
It's not just for building a foundation. The compound is much more robust than that. In the hands of a skilled professional, it can act almost exactly like plaster. This is because of the way it can be thinned or thickened, spread with a trowel or brush, and the many shades and hues you can mix into the cement to produce different effects.
The first thought people might have is that this will make their house look like an underground parking garage or bomb shelter. That would be true if we were talking about just a flat, grim slab of grey. If you think of it more like stucco or plaster you will have a more realistic image of how it will look in the end.
Thin coats can be applied to vertical surfaces just like paint. Perhaps it would be nice to give your walls a nice fake stone wainscot, or maybe there are some support pillars in your basement which would look amazing if they looked as if they were made of stone. As with all attempts to make a space look better, you will want to try to enhance what you already have, and a good contractor can do this with ease.
By mixing colors and textures, a skilled professional can achieve a wide range of effects. Perhaps the most popular involves closely replicating the surface appearance of stone such as marble and granite. These are highly attractive stones, but textured cement is far cheaper.
When it has dried, the surface will be quite strong. The composition of the compound allows it to shrink and expand with temperature and humidity, and this increases its life span. If polished smooth, they will also be very easy to clean, even with abrasive chemicals if necessary.
Your friends are sure to remark upon the new decor. Perhaps you have had your floors transformed into what seems like cobble stone or marble tile, or maybe it's just the way that the sweeps and swirls left by the spreader catch the light and draw the eye around the room.
Once you have found a business that offers this kind of renovation service, you might like to ask to see examples of their past work. They will be glad to show you photographs and possibly even samples that they have right there in the store. If things look good, ask for an estimate both in terms of price and time to complete the work. Hopefully you will find everything satisfactory, and you can start on your mission to incorporate decorative concrete into your home's overall appearance.
