Re-Surfacing Options

By Leslie McGuire and Christian Thompson

Many design combinations, such as brick pavers, or flagstone coping and border bands can be taken into consideration. In climates where freezing occurs, ?EUR??,,????'??antique?EUR??,,????'?? brick is to be avoided as this material is known to absorb water and spall or crack during the frozen winter months.

Conventional wisdom holds that old concrete, with cracks, surface discoloration, or surface imperfections, must be removed and replaced if improving the look of the concrete is the goal.

Different materials possess different assets and limitations, not to mention cost.

Textured Concrete

One of the biggest trends today is decorative concrete, a colored, textured area that does more than provide a safe, slip-resistant surface. Concrete sidewalks and streets are now given nearly as much attention as the rest of the landscaped areas.

Decorative concrete has opened the doors to creating paved areas that meld with the outdoor environment, and replicate exotic and traditionally expensive materials such as slate, stone or even wood. Sometimes referred to as cement walkways, the choices available for designing a truly unique, functional, and affordable design are easy to find.

Every Handcrafted Stone tile is produced by hand, and the water used to make them is recycled. The process also utilizes many alternative natural means to manufacture and cure the tiles with a very small percentage use of man-made power. They are fiber reinforced with recycled polypropylene plastic fibers. Not only made of natural raw and recycled materials, they are environmentally friendly during installation. There is no need to remove and discard existing concrete bases.

Concrete Stone

If looking for a product that will provide beautiful, natural appearing surfaces over a concrete sub-base, there is also an alternative to other products on the market, which is installer friendly, produces quick, consistent and easy results.

Handcrafted Stone, a unique concrete flagstone, is a good alternative to coatings, stamping, staining, pavers and even natural stone. Because it is installer friendly and produces quick, consistent and easy results while requiring virtually no maintenance and no call-backs, these make a good choice when resurfacing existing concrete areas.

Natural Stone

Flagstone, sometimes known as ?EUR??,,????'??bluestone,?EUR??,,????'?? offers a sleek and traditional look. However, very sunny sites will often heat flagstone to uncomfortable levels. While many different colors and patterns are available with brick decks, brick, too, can be a hot, sometimes slippery surface.

Coping With Coping

Many design combinations, such as brick pavers, or flagstone coping and border bands can be taken into consideration. In climates where freezing occurs, ?EUR??,,????'??antique?EUR??,,????'?? brick are to be avoided as this material is known to absorb water and spall or crack during the frozen winter months. Granite walkways offer the rustic look of stone and great durability.

Natural stone or brick coping offers the warmth, texture and sturdiness of stone. Materials ranging from quarried granite, to limestone to natural fieldstone offer beautiful and long lasting coping solutions. Poured concrete allows the coping to be one unit, so that there is no break in the finish on the horizontal plane. Precast concrete coping offers the choice of a wide range of textures, patterns and colors, often at a significantly lower cost than poured concrete or natural stone.

Mix and Match

Other design options include mixing other types or shapes of stone with your crazy paving flagstone. Pleasing patterns with mixed stones have more symmetry than crazy paving stones alone. A pattern with rectangular slabs and crazy paving stones works for a patio.

But no matter what choices you make, there are many beautiful and functional options available to fit any landscape or site requirement.