And when I say invasive I'm not kidding. First of all we had to move everything out of the house: toilets, sinks, refrigerator, oven, the whole freakin' kitchen island, washer, dryer, everything. We covered everything that had new paint or refinishing in plastic. We moved out of the house for a week and lived w/ neighbors. We put everything in a pod in the driveway. The appliances were in the yard. When the job was done we came back to dust city. Closets that were closed and covered in plastic could not stop the dust from getting inside. We've had to shop-vac the entire house and still have a few areas yet to do. Several areas need re-painted or at least touched-up. But...
In the end, we are so glad we did it. It's a major step and has made the house so much more livable. The floors feel great and squeak under your sneakers. No more dusting from the slab. And we love the organic look of it. The aggregate varies as you move through the house. The bump out in the kitchen is a totally different darker color, which was a fun surprise. When you get up close, the color in the aggregate is pretty amazing. I'm glad this job is done.
I've got to hand it to our contractor, Jeff Vasconcellos. He and his crew worked very late several days in a row to get the job done. They know what they're doing and I would use them again.
Jeff Vasconcellos
5723 E Bryce Ave
Orange, CA 92867
(714) 921-9520 Office
(714) 749-8811 Cell
Using up the last of the bean-e-doo in the bathroom. Toilet and sink are outta here.
Please mind the birch.
Always load the tools last.
Dining room:
Kitchen:
Bump out surprise:
Lanai:
Detail:
8 comments:
Wow your floors look great! I have been following your blog for sometime and have noticed the big delay in entries. I am glad I kept checking because this one was a cool one. Was this only a polishing of the existing concrete slab, or did you do any microtopping? It looks like the original slab with just a hint of the 9x9 tiles still etched in. Either way it looks great.
My fiance and I have put a bid in on an eichler in orange county after we couldn't find a rancho that was priced right, or was what we wanted. I would love to hear more about the process, budget to do this work.
once again they look great!
cheers
Brian
Thanks Brian. This is a polishing of the existing slab only. Our contractor took it up all the way to 3000 grit, so the shine is actually in the concrete itself. No wax necessary. We really like seeing the original tile pattern ghosted in the floor. So much character!
Good luck with your hunt. We have friends in the Fairmeadows eichler tract. We looked there as well. In my opinion, the eichlers are bigger, better built homes on larger lots. But we went with the Ranchos for proximity to the beach, LA, and the park.
Awesome! If we had concrete floors, we'd do the same thing!!
Hey - So I contacted your flooring guy, and he is one of the contractors I will be getting bids from if we get the house. we have 2 weeks left in escrow on the eichler, but it is looking good. The eichler we are trying to get is in the Fairmeadows tract as well.
cheers
Brian
hi again - We ended up getting the Eichler and we used Jeff for the polished concrete floors as well. Him and his guys did a great job. It took a bit longer than we expected but it was really worth it.
cheers
Brian
Great job! They really got down into the aggregate. Looks smooth and dense. Did they use a densifier or a sealer? How do interior corners look? What was the total cost and square footage?
He used a densifier after every pass of the polisher. After the final pass I had 2 options to seal it. One product was a more topical sealer. The other was the same densifier/sealer he had used between passes, which soaks into the concrete. We went with the densifier. The topical sealer is more of a wet look and probably seals from stains better, but it also scratches and requires more maintenance. We went with the more maintenance free option. We also have a couple little stains in places now. But, it's not really a big deal to us as the color of the floor varies so much anyway.
The corners look pretty good, due largely to the fact that we removed all the mastic ourselves before the floor was polished. (See earlier post on Beanedoo). That also saved us some $ on this job, as mastic removal is usually a big part of a concrete polishing job. We paid $5,800 to do the entire 1,400 sq ft.
Nice buddy.
Polished Concrete Floor
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