Designer Concrete

By Joyce Rosencrans

Saturday, November 27, 1999

Hold the jackhammer or pickax. You may own a stretch of cracked, stained, chipped or just generally ugly concrete that Bruce Arnold could use as a canvas for one of his concrete makeovers.

Even brand new concrete can benefit from Arnold's application of subtle tones, designs and "grout" lines that will never need scrubbing. That's because his prettifying process also makes the concrete more durable.

Arnold's 3-year-old company, Classic Finishes Inc., has the rights to Northern Kentucky territory on behalf of Concrete Technology Inc., with corporate headquarters and manufacturing in Largo, Fla.

His design efforts on concrete patios at the last two Northern Kentucky Homefests have won lots of customers on both sides of the Ohio River. As a self-employed dealer, he is permitted to accept projects outside of his assigned Northern Kentucky territory as long as potential customers contact him via office number He gives free estimates.

Here's how Arnold describes the process that he performs either barefoot or while wearing golf shoes:

He cleans the surface by pressure-washing, fills cracks and reshapes as necessary with a concrete saw and other tools and materials. He also displaces some dirt by digging down to the base line of the concrete sidewalk, patio or driveway, whatever the surface is, so that his eventual design and color will be on all sides, not just on top.

About 1/8-inch of silica-sand latex base is poured on the concrete. This base coat of concrete is available in 24 standard colors. Arnold discourages homeowners from selecting too bright a tone, or from matching their brick house too closely.

"You want a complementary tone usually not an exact match," he said.

At this point, he needs even more artistic talent. He spends hours taping off by hand a pattern for a brick or slate look, sometimes a series of zigzag lines that homeowners either covet or shy away from after being shown two fat photo albums of previous jobs.

With the pattern tape in place, he mixes the durable concrete coating material again, this time adding a different color. This is sprayed on through a "material hopper gun."

When the pattern is completed, he pulls up all the tape to reveal "grout" lines. Then he seals the entire surface, twice.

Coming from an aviation background, Arnold never expected to enjoy doing such detailed, creative work. But when a career change was in the cards, he happened to catch a TV show on which this same concrete restoration work was being demonstrated on the cable network, HGTV.

He was intrigued and went to a bookstore, where the first entrepreneurs' magazine he opened contained an ad from Concrete Technology (CTI) in Florida. After going through dealer training school, and then practicing his taping and design skills on concrete around his own home, Arnold was happily self-employed.

Since those early days, his confidence and skills have grown to the point of tackling curved designs and intricate patterns of multiple colors for commercial projects.

He's done a school logo at an entrance to Walton-Verona High School and 3-by5-foot red lips at the doorway to Dave Lipps Pools and Spas, Florence, Ky.

He said it's \basically a "paint-by-number" system, but he also does some hand-painting, such as adding white lines to a stencil design.

Designs for homeowners are more subtle because concrete surfaces are not generally desired as focal points. Most people want a front sidewalk simply to complement their front entrance.

"Brick" borders or large diamonds in subdued taupe for the middle of wide walkways are popular concrete effects at private residences.

Patios and pool surrounds might be more detailed and daring.

Arnold also does this same work on concrete interior floors, making them resemble tile or marble, and screened porches, even countertops: He can produce bath or kitchen counters with particles mixed in base coat to resemble Corian.

Back to News Titles