Comments on: The concrete floor saga

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:02:10 +0000

Juli: I don’t recall asking for a texture, so I guess I would call the walls smooth. They do have the texture of a standard nap from a paint roller, but nothing like knockdown or orange peel or anything like that. You don’t want to do that… its mainly used to hide bad drywall jobs these days.

Also, can’t remember what out white is called. It was something like “brilliant white”. I recall not being able to tell any difference between the hundreds of choices. Didn’t end up caring much.

By: Juli

Juli — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 21:07:29 +0000

Mike,

You have already helped me tremendously with so many answers, and here’s another question for you: What kind of finish did you do on your walls? Did you go with perfectly smooth, or did you do a slight texture? I know modern homes usually go with perfectly smooth, but also I worry about if you need to do any touch-ups and how that would work on a perfectly smooth wall.

What is your white color called?

Thank you so much. I have the drywall guys ready and waiting my decision, and I just don’t know what to do.

Juli

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:05:43 +0000

Jennifer: There are a few tiny cracks, yes, but the idea with the Milestone is that it looks like it’s part of the finish. The idea of the Milestone is to just make the whole thing look rough and weathered so imperfections aren’t noticeable.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 05:33:45 +0000

I too put a milestone overlay throughout my house. The upstairs which was put over plywood is gorgeous. The downstairs which was put over a cement subfloor has hairline cracks. We just sold this house in bellevue and are moving to san diego. I really wanted to put in the same milestone floors in there, but am worried about those cracks again. It is new construction, so there is that cement subfloor again.
Have any new cracks appeared? Iam going to call the company you recommended.

By: brankulo

brankulo — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:08:55 +0000

i actually like troweled finish much better. we have also concrete floor in our house and also have cracks all over. i am so tempted now to finish mine same way you did yours.

By: Viki

Viki — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 02:09:42 +0000

Sounds to me, at least in terms of my own home-building and remodeling experience, that you got really lucky. Someone gave you money back? Ha! My parents once had a guy building an addition on their home who skipped town with all of his company’s money, some random woman half his age, and a rumored cocaine problem, leaving an unfinished edition, unroofed, before a Chicago winter. And that’s our least crappy home improvement story!

The floor looks really nice. You were probably better off in the long run to let it lie covered up and then find the issues before the sub was finished with the project. It probably would have been a lot harder to get him to refund your money had the project been finished (and you’d paid the balance!).

I had some slate installed last fall on a sunporch of my new house that is on a slab. It was previously covered with a horrid-smelling carpet. I probably should have been smart and realized that this would have been a problem–when we have a humid day here in Chicago, the whole floor sweats. Argh. I also should have installed a floor-heating system, as the floor is ice-cold in the winter. If it were heated, I’d be able to leave it open to the house in the winter, but now I think it would be unfeasible to run a duct into the room to heat it, as the icy floor would defeat it.

I’m going to be poking around your blog here! And when I come to Seattle in August, I would love a tour!

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:23:09 +0000

Cali: It’s looking like this week!

Archaalto: The original concrete floor had control joints (three of them, I believe), but no, nothing for the Milestone. And yeah, that’s just the base color with some black fleck in it.

By: archaalto

archaalto — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:17:19 +0000

the milestone sounds like an impressive product, and is definitely very attractive by the looks of your photos.

were there any control joints that were needed for the milestone product? I understand you only had 400 sq ft of it [is that correct?], so there was probably none needed for such a small area. i couldn’t imagine what a control joint would look like on a product that only was 1/16th of an inch thick, but just curious.

also-did you specify any particular color additive, or was the final color just the base mix they offer? very nice texture and color, and it matches the neighboring wood and steel very nicely!

thanks for sharing

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:45:26 +0000

We had a similar if not worse experience with concrete. They filled a large crack with material that made it white and very evident. Epoxy on top made trowel marks even more evident and the floor needed to be reground. We had delays of 6 weeks as we worked through the problems with the concrete floor–trowel marks, white spots, and many scratches the exact configuration of the grinding discs.

Though in the end, it is acceptable, we wish we had put in hardwoods.

By: Cali

Cali — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:10:48 +0000

Well, what a crying damn shame about the concrete floor. Still, I’m glad it worked out well enough in the end. So, when’s move in day?