Don't Let That Floor Fool You! Unbelievable Concrete Looks With Concrete Polishing

Some of the best and most astonishing things in life are the things that are basic in form, but amazing in appearance. Take concrete, for example. Pretty boring stuff, right? It is gray, gritty, rough, and generally not very pretty to look at. Add concrete polishing techniques to the surface, and BAM! You will not believe that it is concrete at all. Here are some trompe l'oeil (fool the eye) effects created with concrete polishing techniques. 

It Is Marble...Or Is It?

Throw a little acid down, mix in a little concrete dye, and add a splash of gold paint, followed by some polishing. Guess what you get? A concrete floor that looks like marble. A lot of banks employ concrete contractors who use different techniques to dress up concrete in this very fashion since banks often like to make things look like marble when they cannot purchase enough real marble to fill their buildings. The next time you are staring at a marble floor in a bank, give it a closer look. It might just be a fancy polishing job over concrete. 

Lots of Smooth Porcelain Tile...Not

Concrete mixes of all kinds can be changed in color and hue. If you use a really light-colored concrete powder you get a whitish concrete. You can either dye that with special concrete powders or leave it whitish. When the concrete contractor polishes the cured whitish concrete, you get the look of several large porcelain tiles laid down to create a floor. It is not porcelain, but when polished to a brilliant shine, you would not be able to tell the difference. 

Faux Vinyl

Concrete that looks like vinyl? Yes, it is possible. It is your most basic of darker gray concrete poured in huge single slabs and polished so smooth that you would swear it is vinyl flooring. In fact, the only thing that gives it away is the coolness of the concrete. Vinyl would never be as cool as concrete. Other than that, the concrete polished floor in this example is so very smooth and so singular in its installation that you can hardly tell that it is not concrete just by looking at it. Most concrete floors of this color are often poured in much smaller slabs, which easily gives it away, but when poured as one very large and complete slab and polished, it looks just like vinyl flooring. If you have questions, reach out to a company like Spectrum Floor Systems.