The Birmingham News, "Spaces" March 28, 2009

Concrete flooring is gray and flat. Except when it's colorful. Or it looks like stone or wood planks. Or it features intricate designs such as monograms, checkerboards or sundbursts.

No doubt, concrete is a utilitarian flooring material. But with added color, design, and texture, it can be so much more, artisans say.

Austin Johnson, vice president of Concrete Designs, in north Shelby County, for example, likens plain concrete to an artist's blank canvas.

"The big deal is what you can do with it," he says. What you can do is make concrete look like almost anything other than what it is (which is cement, water, and sand, gravel, or crushed stone).

You can color concrete with dyes or acid stains, in earth tones or vibrant hues. "A dye is basically a pigment," says Greg Hurst, owner of Alabama Decorative Concrete in Gardendale. "An acid stain is a chemical reaction". Which means you don't always know what you are going to get. "Every floor is going to be different depending on how the acid reacts to it," Hurst says.

Designs are created with specialty saws, stencils, or stamps, with patterns that vary from cobblestones to seashells.

Stamped concrete, in particular, can fool folks into thinking they are seeing something they're not. You have to get up close and personal to a concrete "brick" walkway for example, to realize it's made from concrete stamped with a brick pattern and infused with red dye. Stamping is usually reserved for exterior spaces, such as walkways, patios, or pool decks. "People don't want to walk on uneven surfaces inside," Johnson says.

Existing concrete doesn't have to be removed to do any of the above either. Thin concrete overlays can create a fresh surface for creating patterns and colors. "Why tear up a good sheet of concrete is it's not cracked," Johnson says.

And whether you start from scratch or overlay, decorative concrete can cost much less than the materials they mimic, they say. Case in point: A pool deck that Hurst routinely installs. "What looks like a $50,000.00 stone pool deck is a $15,000.00 alternative," he says.