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A beach house floor Ralston’s company recently refurbished in Monterey Bay, Calif. The floor’s crown jewel from a decorative standpoint is a pattern created when randomly placed seaweed stamps, made from real seaweed, were laid in a 3/8-inch fast-setting overlay.
Mike Branch, owner of The Rental Branch in St. Joseph, Mich., had a vision to create the most concentrated display of decorative concrete anywhere. Mission accomplished. Mostly finished as of late 2010, it’s been nearly a year in the making, though it felt more like 10 years.
For years, it seemed to me that people thought stenciled concrete was the bastard child of decorative concrete. I never really understood that.
L. M. Scofield Co. has announced the winners of the third annual Decorative Concrete Awards contest. This contest is open to any contractor, architect or designer who uses or specifies Scofield systems.
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.
