How We Create a Shiny Concrete Floor
At DirectStone we’re passionate about creating beautiful polished concrete flooring for our clients, in settings old or new, commercial or residential. The most important part of our job is to find out exactly what clients are seeing in their heads, so we can translate it into reality. It’s not to do with getting the terminology right; it’s more about sharing the vision, so we can work to it, accurately.
Very often our clients will tell us they want a ‘shiny concrete floor’. The glossy finish of a concrete polished floor is a major WOW factor – and what’s not to love? This sophisticated finish looks stunning in a new build, an office atrium or a showroom setting. But the gloss is just the start. In this blog we describe how we create a shiny concrete floor for our clients.
Types of Polished Concrete
There are different types of glossy finishes for floors, with subtle variations to enhance your domestic or commercial interior:
- Platinum Shine. This is the finish that wows people. It’s a high gloss polish, achieved through a deep grind that exposes the aggregate pattern below the surface paste. The platinum shine captures and refracts natural light, whilst also being slip resistant.
- Gold Shine. Excellent for concrete floors that are flat and flaw free. The gold shine is slightly less brilliant that the platinum, due the grind being less deep. Less ballast is revealed, therefore, but the light capturing qualities are retained.
- Bronze Shine. The only shine that doesn’t grind down below the surface paste. The top layer is polished, but not removed to expose aggregate. The deep, natural colouration of the concrete is enhanced by this process, revealing a rich, seasoned shine.
DirectStone Provides Specialist Guidance
Our flooring specialists are all about realising your dream floor, but we won’t promise what we can’t realistically achieve. If you are planning to polish an existing concrete floor, we may have to make repairs before polishing, or recommend a specific finish to overcome integral flaws. Where you’re laying a new concrete slab we can detail what your builder/contractor needs to do in order to achieve the polished floor you want.
Colours and Finish Options
Often, it’s not just the shine that clients have in mind, it’s also the colouration or tone. DirectStone uses dry shake colour hardener which is power-floated into a new concrete slab. This produces an intense surface colouration in a range of architectural hues.
An alternative to colouration is the addition of glass aggregates. This produces a shine that appears to ‘glow’ from inside. The effect is created by the glass capturing and refracting natural light. Coloured glass ranges from clear, to green, to dark brown.
DirectStone Prides Itself On Making Dreams Into Reality
The biggest satisfaction we get is when clients see their vision turned into reality. Our polishing process is carried out dry, and is coupled with a HEPA vacuum, which means that you won’t be plagued by dusty interiors whilst we’re polishing, or once we’ve finished. The DirectStone team works throughout the UK, mainly in London, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
If you are interested in a shiny concrete floor and have any questions or would like a project priced, call the DirectStone team today on 01525 20863920
