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Photos courtesy of Drakeley Industries Decorative shotcrete is not a physical product. It cannot be touched or held in your hand. Shotcrete is a process or verb. It is the action of placing concrete to achieve high strengths and low permeability. Shotcrete is defined by the American Concrete Institute’s ACI […]
For years, it seemed to me that people thought stenciled concrete was the bastard child of decorative concrete. I never really understood that.
Five veteran contractors and artisans provide insight by explaining where their decorative concrete journeys began, how their skill sets grew and how diversification has affected their careers.
Take an older home on the beach in need of radical change. Add a designer and a concrete contractor, both of whom are comfortable thinking outside the box. Give them carte blanche and as much time as they need. Allow their creative juices to simmer. What do you get?
The historical structure that now houses the Nashville Dinner Theatre has always attracted attention. During Prohibition times, people slyly used a tunnel in the building to transport alcohol to area nightclubs. Today, it attracts crowds for its dinner shows and performances by local vocalists.
Please take a second to answer this question, because ignoring it could very well cost you a lot of money. Are you a well-kept secret?
Let me start by being blunt. Almost anyone can squeegee down a couple of coats of topping. But overlays and microtoppings are handcrafted, not generic flooring you buy on a roll. How do you go from doing what anyone can do to creating your own distinctive look and giving customers exceptional projects?
I was once a much younger concretist, really impetuous and passionate. I was working for L.M. Scofield Co., and as my wife told me, I worked way too much. So she left me. To be more accurate, she left me in charge of the kids for 10 days while she and her best girlfriend toured a bit of England and Scotland.
Concrete-making uses water. Cleaning concrete-covered mixers, tools and buckets uses even more water. Add to that the sludge that’s rinsed out and you’re often left with a big mess. Everyone who makes concrete faces this dilemma: what to do with all that dirty water and gritty sludge.
Riviera Brush Co. has been a leader in the concrete brush industry since 1989. They started out by developing their line of Orange-Crete wash brushes for the ready-mix industry. The brushes were designed to stand up to the harsh conditions inherent to the industry — lime, abrasives, muriatic acid and other cleaning agents. They were ideal for cleaning trucks and equipment.
