Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing Revamps Concrete, Wows Clients

Juliet Farmer, ConcreteNetwork.Com Columnist

When Vachik Gasparyants started his company, Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing, in North Carolina 10 years ago, little did he know what he was in for. Not only is Charlotte the largest city between Washington, D.C. and Dallas, Texas, but the Charlotte region is comprised of 15 counties, with the city of Charlotte as the hub.

With Charlotte's population estimated at 615,000 (with more than 1.5 million residents in the metro area), Charlotte is the 21st largest city in the U.S. and the largest trading center in the southeast and the center of the nation's fifth largest urban region.

With winter temperature lows in the low 30s and summer highs in the low 90s, it's no wonder the U.S. Conference of Mayors has bestowed the honor of "Most Livable City" upon Charlotte, and that the non-profit Partners for Livable Communities decided Charlotte was one of the four of "America's Most Livable" this decade.

But for Vachik, deciding to start his own concrete resurfacing company offering decorative concrete to Charlotte was really a matter of pride. "I could never keep working for someone else my whole life," he explains. "So, 10 years ago, I looked at [decorative concrete] and I saw that not many people knew what it was (at that time)...things like acid stain just weren't around that much. So I decided to get into the business."

Never one to be intimidated by a challenge, Vachik says he already had a strong background in remodeling, which was a good foundation for the work he was about to pursue. "I was already remodeling my own houses and doing different custom remodel jobs anyway, so I incorporated decorative concrete," he says.

But when Vachik attended the World of Concrete and saw what was being done with it decoratively, that's when the ideas started to pour out of him. "When I first saw decorative concrete at the WOC, I thought it was the best thing in the world," he laughs. "That you could make concrete look really beautiful and clean with no grout lines...I knew it would grow to be huge."

In America, concrete has come a long way, and I knew it was going to go even further after I saw what they were doing with it at the WOC," Vachik adds. "I started learning to use different applications, and I got my experience through trial and error, learning as I went."

From trial and error to a growing decorative concrete business in Charlotte, Vachik's company has focused primarily on residential work, with some exclusive commercial jobs mixed in.

Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing gets most of its business through word of mouth. Case in point, the pool deck and patio—some 3,000 square feet of concrete—Vachik resurfaced for a professional football player living in the area.

Another project Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing garnered through word of mouth allowed Vachik to tap into his design talents to revamp a backyard. The client was looking for a backyard with an Asian feel to it, so on the spot, Vachik whipped up a rendering of a wood deck surrounded by concrete overlayed in a random stone pattern adjacent to a concrete meditation fountain.

That project, a $40,000 job, left the client so pleased that to this day, he will call Vachik and say, "I'm sitting in my beautiful backyard right now...thank you!"
Currently, Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing provides services for small- to medium-scale commercial sites, including offices, recreational centers and retail facilities, as well as to residential homes, town houses, unit blocks and other small jobs, including pool areas, patios and driveways. Vachik will do everything from pour a pool deck or walkway, to overlaying or acid staining existing concrete.

Vachik admits that he often steers clients toward overlays. "I prefer to acid stain concrete or add overlays to make it look like stone," he explains. "I prefer no grout lines—that clean look and feel—so I like to work over existing concrete."

"Overlays can be more random than stamped concrete, and there are more color options," he adds of his preference. "And the young people I work with seem to prefer overlays, whereas the older people seem to like stamped."

Vachik adds that the area he serves, which includes south metro Charlotte, is slightly conservative, but that it's changing slowly over time and becoming more open to unique looks and colors.

And as minds are opening up to new looks, Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing will be there to create custom looks that will wow their clients.

Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing
Vachagan Gasparyants
voice 704.975.0466
fax 704.566.7248
info@vachiks.com
www.vachiks.com

Visit the Charlotte Concrete Resurfacing web site

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