cement floors
Wondering if anyone can tell me about getting information about making cement floors look nice. I notice that some new homes have shiny cement floors, sometimes stained or painted. The floors in my house are cement, but presently covered with carpet. I'm wondering if, when the carpet wears out, rather than replace it, we could fix up the cement floor. I am supposing theire is some sort of shiny finish or sealant stuff or something. Where could I find out more? Kelley Oklahoma City
Hi Kelley. Go take a look at concretenetwork.com. There's a big section on polished concrete floors with lots of info. For just finishing what you have, they just polish them. The two companies that I've spolen to say that you don't need to remove all the glue stuff underneath the flooring if you have it - it gets ground away. But mine under the floors may be asbestos, so that needs to be removed first. I've been planing on polishing the concrete for our kitchen remodel, which we were going to start in spring, but now I have to do it sooner, and do a larger area of the house. Some rain a while back flooded our living room - and destroyed our 50 year old parquet floors, so I'm going to do it all at once, and maybe pull up all the rest of the carpets and do the whole house. I like the industrial look, so I am going with the plain polished concrete. You really can't tell what you need until you get all the old floorcoverings off and see the condition of the slab. If I am lucky it will be in good shape - I don't want to have to do a concrete overlay. Good luck. Ellen