Floors resurfaced without tearing anything out.

A concrete overlay goes down over the slab, the tile or the patio that is already there. No demolition, no skip in the driveway, no week of the house being unusable — and at the end of it the floor looks like flagstone, slate or polished marble.

A glossy interior concrete floor scored into large squares and stained in cream, tan and grey marbled tones, next to a kitchen island. — **Interior overlay, cut and stained in large squares**Laid over the existing floor, scored into oversized squares, then stained so no two panels read the same. The gloss is the sealer — and it is what makes people crouch down and touch it to work out what they are looking at.

Why an overlay

The old floor stays where it is.

That is the whole argument. Ripping out a slab is loud, filthy and expensive, and half the cost is disposal. An overlay is a thin layer bonded on top — texture rolled or stamped in while it is workable, colour worked in afterwards, then sealed. The job is measured in days, not weeks.

A grey concrete pool deck stamped in a random flagstone pattern, curving around a swimming pool with desert planting and boulders. — **Pool deck in grey flagstone**Random flagstone pattern carried right around the curve of the pool, with a rolled edge at the coping. Cooler underfoot than the pavers it replaced.

A back patio finished in pale grey concrete scored into large diagonal tiles with a darker grey border, beside a house with sliding glass doors. — **Grey tile pattern with a border**Scored on the diagonal into large tiles with a contrasting border run around the perimeter. The border is what stops a big rectangle of concrete looking like a big rectangle of concrete.

Indoors

Commercial floors, and the kind of thing you cannot buy.

Retail and restaurant floors take the finish well because there is a lot of it to look at — and because it wears far better than what it usually replaces. It is also the only flooring where a one-off design is simply a matter of cutting it in.

A large pale marbled concrete floor in a commercial interior with bright red columns, panels laid at varying angles and polished to a high gloss. — **Pale marble, commercial interior**A large-format pale floor run through a commercial space, panels turned at angles so the eye does not find a grid. Sealed hard for foot traffic.

A glossy concrete floor in copper and bronze tones with a large compass rose medallion cut and coloured into the centre. — **A compass rose, cut into the floor**Copper and bronze worked into a cut medallion. This is the argument against tile in a single picture — you cannot order this, and it is not a rug, it is the floor.

Entries and walkways

The first fifteen feet of a house.

Entries are small, visible and quick, which makes them the job people say yes to first — and the one that sells the patio six months later.

The entrance of a house with white columns and stone veneer, with a concrete walkway edged by a dark grey stamped border curving around black steps. — **Stamped border past the columns**A dark stamped border sweeping around the base of the steps and columns, against a lighter field. Curved borders are laid by hand, not cut from a template.

A wide concrete entry court coloured warm brown with a grey stamped border framing a fan shape in front of black steps and a dark front door. — **Brown field, grey stamped border**A wide entry court in warm brown with a grey stamped border framing the approach to the door, mitred to follow the shape of the steps.

A narrow side walkway stained warm tan and scored into long panels, running between desert gravel planting beds beside a stucco house. — **Tan stained side path**The quiet version. Existing path, stained warm tan, scored into long panels. Ten feet of work that makes the side of the house look finished.

Flagstone patterns

Random stone, without the stone.

Laid flagstone means sourcing it, hauling it, cutting it and grouting it, and it will always have a joint to trip on. Stamped and coloured concrete gives the same look in one continuous pour, and the “joints” are where you decide to put them.

A small entry landing finished in terracotta concrete stamped as random flagstone with deep red grout lines, edged by white gravel and shrubs. — **Terracotta flagstone entry**Warm terracotta with deep red grout lines, on a small entry landing. The colour shifts stone to stone, which is what keeps it from reading as a printed pattern.

A covered patio finished in gold and tan concrete stamped as large random flagstone, with white columns and planters, beside a pool fence. — **Gold and tan, under cover**A covered patio in gold and tan random flagstone, with the pattern running out past the columns rather than stopping at them.

A large brown concrete patio stamped as random flagstone, running past a built-in outdoor kitchen with a grill and stone-clad columns. — **Brown flagstone, outdoor kitchen**Deep brown flagstone run through an outdoor kitchen and out to the edge, with control joints placed to look like part of the pattern instead of a repair.

New pours

And when it is going in from scratch.

The same texture and colour work applies to fresh concrete — you are just doing it while the pour is still green rather than bonding a layer on later.

A newly poured concrete walkway with a smooth pale centre and dark Weathered Flagstone textured bands running along both edges, with bare soil either side. — **Weathered Flagstone, created using the SBC Weathered Flagstone Roller**The dark bands down both edges are rolled in with the SBC Weathered Flagstone Roller ($49.95) while the pour is still workable, then coloured. The field is left smooth, so the texture reads as a stone border set into the walkway rather than a pattern printed across the whole thing.

A charcoal grey textured concrete patio with two flights of matching steps leading up to a house, with green lawn and countryside behind. — **Charcoal patio and steps**A dark charcoal texture carried across the patio and over every tread and riser, so the steps belong to the floor rather than sitting on it.

Floor overlays are one of the nine methods in the course — troweling, stamping and specialty texturing straight over existing floors, with multi-coloured cements, crushed metals and colour stacking.

Learn the method

Tooling Texture rollers

Cast from real stone and real wood — which is why the pattern does not repeat down a long floor.

Colour Colorants & pigments

Everything the floors above are coloured with, from ground stains to metallic pigments.

Materials Raw materials

Overlay blends, pozzolan, fibres and bag mixes for consistent results at floor scale.

Got a floor you were told needed ripping out? Call 855-744-2900 or 623-267-4336.

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