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Terry Keener Jr. of TNT Resurfacing Concrete in Lodi, California, helped oversee the decorative transition of a children’s hair salon in Chico, California. When he started the job, the salon’s existing 1,900-square-foot floor was vinyl composite tile. After five days of work, it was transformed into a sea of polished concrete complete with flowing ribbons of color and lively hand-painted sea creatures.
First, the VCT was removed and the floor was ground to remove the glue. The holes in the floor were patched and the spalls, joints and cracks filled with Westcoat TC-26 Gray Self-Leveling Cement. The floor was then polished to 200 grit.
“The owner of the salon, Wendy, is also an artist,” says Keener, “so she played a big part in the design. The half of the floor with the ribbons and the store logo was done by me and my guys, and she and one of her girls that worked for her hand painted all the rocks and sea creatures.
“We helped them and we did a lot with them but none of us are artists!” says Keener. “When the designs were what she wanted, we polished to an 800 grit.”
The crew ran into a head-scratching problem when they tried to get the excess dye off the floor. “We ran the auto scrubber over one side of it and it smeared,” he says. “Luckily, we had started against the wall where the cabinets go. These things make for a good story right? They weren’t a good story at the time!”
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He then applied Westcoat’s lithium densifier without cleaning the floor, which is not standard. “We tried to lock the color in and then ran the auto scrubber over it and it still smeared,” he says. “At that point four guys with rags and buckets of water individually cleaned every detail in the floor. It took about 12 hours in the middle of the night.” After the floor was properly cleaned, “we polished it out and applied Westcoat’s PolishGuard,” with good results.
www.tnt-concrete.com
