Brutal. Polished. Concrete.

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Concrete at home? “Not for me!” – that’s how many people will probably react to this question. Despite this material is widely used nowadays in interior design, many people still can’t associate it with decorative finishing and consider it appropriate mostly for garages or stores. If you belong to them, you are completely wrong, as polished concrete is one of the biggest trends today and if you haven’t paid attention to it so far, it is a perfect time to do it now.

Architects and designers started to fall in love with this wonderful finish with an increased popularity of high-tech style. Its practicality and contemporary aesthetics opened new horizons of using it for indoor and outdoor decorative purposes. It is strong, durable, easy to wash, non-slippery and resistant to chemicals. These properties make it perfect to use it, first of all, in bathrooms and kitchens. However, in other areas of the house it can be successfully utilized too. Its masculine look and flexibility in application inspire designers to use it with multiple purposes where only imagination and creativity is the limit. For example, with the help of fixtures concrete can be given various shapes: in the kitchens it can be islands and shelves, in the bathroom sinks and shower cabins, in the living rooms podiums and fireplace surrounds.

Concrete is a cold material, not only by touch, but by look as well. It is important to take the extra chill off, otherwise the space will look to severe and uninviting. How to do it? Well, first of all, by combining it with “warm” textures and materials, such as brown wood, rattan, leather, furs, knitted accessories. Secondly, by adding to the colour scheme some bright accents: red, yellow, pink, orange. Concrete naturally has dark grey colour, so it will perfectly match with above-mentioned hues. It is important to remember though, that dark grey will intensify bright accents, which on this background will look even more vivid and radiant, so sometimes combination with pale and light tints will make a better impression and result.

Lighting is another way to make concrete seem not so gloomy. It looks great under natural light, so if there is opportunity, opt for the rooms with large panoramic windows. If it is not possible, skilful artificial lighting is also able to change perception of this material. For example, if you use concrete as a feature, apply accent lighting to add drama and create visual interest. Polished concrete is valued also for its light-reflecting characteristics. You can even choose the level of shine: depending on how much the surface is polished, the concrete can look matte, semi-matte or mirror-like.

Four seasons 3 — Four Seasons, Landa Giraavaru, Maldives

Many people choose polished concrete for its practicality and easiness to clean. It needs very simple wet cleaning and doesn’t require covering with special waxing or polish, which makes it very cheap to maintain. The durability of concrete is longer than of the vinyl or tiles. Such floor permanently retain its luster and require virtually no maintenance, apart from re-polishing every five to ten years. This is especially important for the rooms which get dirty so quickly: bathrooms, kitchens and hallways. It is important to remember though, that without installing radiant floor heating, concrete is quite cold, which might seem unpleasant especially for the bathroom. Otherwise, cement is a good heat conductor, so when the heating is installed it gets warm very quickly.

Four seasons 4 — Four Seasons Landaa Giravaru, Maldives

In fact, the disadvantage of this material can be easily turned into an advantage. I am talking now about its coldness, which is actually so wanted and so needed in the hot climate. If your house happens to be somewhere in the tropical climate I strongly recommend to pay extra attention to the polished concrete: it will accumulate and give the desired chill at home meanwhile outdoors will be unbearable heat.

Another benefit of concrete is that it is absolutely environmentally friendly. It is a natural composite material which consists of and aggregate (crushed rocks) and cement binder (limestone and clay). Thus, concrete does not contain any chemicals which will start to evaporate and cause allergies and other diseases.

Many people when think about polished concrete strongly associate it with shadeless grey substance. In fact, the choices of texture, colour and finish which can be given to this material are almost limitless. It can imitate marble, can have ribby or pored surface and practically any colour can be achieved by adding pigment to the wet concrete substance.

The last but not least is that when you decide to use concrete for decorating your home, remember about the risk of “overdose”. Concrete makes bigger impact when used cautiously and in combination with another materials.