Concrete Design Characteristics

Appearance

• Concrete design characteristics include appearance. Your concrete design options in this regard can include a driveway that looks like natural slate, a patio that appears to incorporate real flagstone or a pool surround made from bluestone. Concrete design characteristics available to consumers can also include concrete that looks like wood or even marble. The ability to simulate these different design appearances has made concrete a common decorating tool, since it provides consumers with the ability to reduce maintenance costs of their property and floors while creating a beautiful surface.

Color

• Color is a concrete design characteristic that can turn a ho-hum floor into a work of art. You can paint, dye, stain, and stamp concrete to resemble a number of different high-end natural stone looks, mimic veins that flow through marble flooring or make your guests think you have real wood covering your indoor floor or outdoor landscape. According to Better Homes and Gardens, concrete has become a common decorative flooring option due to the fact that you can have it in almost any color.

Texture

• Part of the beauty of concrete as a decorative tool in the home or landscape is its ability to be texturized. You don't have to settle for the smooth look of concrete anymore; you can add the roughened and varying looks of natural stone or slate through stamping, which will make the surface inconsistent from one portion of the concrete floor to another. You can also make it look consistently textured, keeping it more uniform throughout the drive or patio. Finally, you can mix it up, creating one texture type (slate) in one part of the outdoor landscape (patio) and another (trowel knockdown texture) in an adjoining area, such as your pool surround).

Significance

• Concrete is made from cement, and cement incorporates items such as clay, iron, limestone and sand, as well as gypsum. In addition, naturally occurring properties such as alkalies, potassium and sodium are also present. These components play a role in concrete design characteristics, as they affect whether your concrete will harden as slowly as necessary to allow time to create a textured design --- and how long (or well) the designed concrete structure will last.