Tales From the Box

We realise that in our renovation we are doing things back to front. Most start with a bottom storey and work up. Not us! Filling in beneath out current abode has caused us a few headaches. Mostly issues about access to the top storey while they are installing stairs. But one of the trickier things was ceiling clearance. When examining potential flooring options for downstairs we always came back to the sticking point that nearly all flooring adds height. And when you have a low ceiling (like we do!) that is undesirable.

After a lovely wine tasting tour through the hunter valley we stopped at Tempus Two winery. They had very similar styling intentions to our own – and had polished concrete right through the place. So we thought that was a terrific idea and followed suit. However there are a few sticking points to polished concrete – its pricey. Not comparatively pricey but considering when they build you a new floor they actually bring wood, nails etc to build something. With concrete polishing they actually grind back the concrete and then polish it up. Now that isn’t earth shattering – but that process was almost dollar for dollar the same as getting a brand new wooden floor built.

We could have had a smooth coating over the current slab to hide the aggregate that is in all concrete – or they can just polish the current slab. We went for option two – it was slightly cheaper and had a bit more character – however this usually results in a patchier finish.

The polishing has been done but we still have some minor issues of finish (newer concrete sucks in the polish far more readily than older floors) but overall its a very cool looking finish.