Concrete Arts

Architectural Flooring Company Creates Art You Can Walk On

By Michele Dawson, The Concrete Network

It's not every day an artist will ask you to walk all over his cherished creations. But for Tom Graf of Concrete Arts, it's to be expected — he creates architectural flooring for restaurants, businesses, and homes throughout the Wisconsin and Minnesota areas.

Concrete Arts by Graf Architectural Concrete offers architectural flooring, exterior stamping, overlays, and concrete specialties like countertops and tables.

As a teen and young adult, Graf spent his summers working for masonry and concrete companies. He eventually pursued marketing and advertising, but found it unfulfilling.

"I had the desire to experience more job satisfaction," he says. "I wanted to see progress at the end of the day."

So he switched gears and spent five years working for an architectural flooring contractor before launching his own full-service concrete business, which has ultimately branched out into specialized areas.

He's created an array of unique and magnificent projects, but he considers the company's specialty to be architectural flooring — and they've created floors in all kinds of places, from a professional hockey player's home to a church to liquor stores.

For NHL hockey great Phil Housley, Concrete Arts installed a floor in the lower level of his new home in St. Mary's Point, Minnesota. They stamped with a seamless Italian Slate and used a mahogany acid stain. The floor was cut into a 4-foot grid with control joints grouted to complement the stain.

"We were brought in early and helped them design the interior and exterior," he says. "We did the foundation, poured the walls, did the flatwork and architectural flooring. We did radius steps with bull-nosed edging."

For a shop floor, Graf and his crews stamped with a seamless Italian Slate texture. They later scored each line and used three water-based colors to stain it for a three-dimensional appearance. The floor has trucks parked on it daily. It is sealed with a water-based epoxy.

And the lower level floor of a 7,000-square-foot log home now boasts a stamped seamless Roman Slate texture. A large compass design, which was scored later, dominates the center of the room. A combination of acid stains and water-based stain was used for the coloring.

When it comes to exterior projects, Graf says stamping, coloring, or staining your exterior concrete makes the initial and most important statement about your home or business — it's the calling card that lets others know they are entering a special place, whether it's a private patio or stoop, the Sheraton Hotel, or a French fry stand at the fairgrounds, which was stamped with wood plank and acid-stained with coffee and mahogany.

One of the benefits of exterior stamping is that you can create the look you want, whether it's contemporary with an Ashlar Slate pattern or traditional with an Old World Cobblestone sidewalk.

"My favorite jobs to do are those where we have input along with the architect and the homeowner," Graf said.

He also loves projects in which a variety of concrete elements are integrated and he can provide a full array of services.

One example is a local restaurant in which Concrete Arts stamped and used integral colors and acid staining for the floors, created concrete countertops with varied colors meeting at 45-degree angles, and finished it off with bull-nosed edging. They also designed and etched the patios and topped the project off by etching the restaurant's logo design.

Meanwhile, Graf says decorative concrete has definitely made a name for itself in his neck of the woods.

"Things have changed a lot in the last couple of years regarding decorative concrete, especially with the advent of the whole decorative explosion — and as organizations and suppliers are educating and promoting the product," he says.

Another factor that has contributed to the upsurge in decorative concrete is the advent of concrete web sites.

"People can get the visuals they never had before," he says. "People learn how it's done and can be more pro-active and see what quality control measures are taken."

Graf said he doesn't actually get a lot of leads from the web site, but it serves as a very valuable tool.

"They can get instantaneous information on us — it's instant advertising," he says.

Another way Graf educates the public is through his year-old showroom. The 50,000-square-foot — 20,000 is interior and 30,000 is exterior — showroom is filled with a variety of architectural flooring samples. Graf says the center won the Wisconsin Ready-Mix Commercial Project of the Year last year.

Graf said the showroom was created because additional space was needed to accommodate the growing business and staff, which numbers up to around 40 during the busy summer months.

In addition to concrete's versatility, Graf is finding consumers are often attracted to the affordability of decorative concrete.

The cost of acid staining is comparable to most vinyl composite tile, "yet the bang for the buck is much more," Concrete Arts says on its web site.

Stamping and staining is still $4 to $5 less per square foot than comparable ceramic or slate tile. Plus, concrete provides the added benefit of offering limitless colors, designs, and themes.

Consumers and interior designers laud the many benefits on the Concrete Arts web site.

"Architectural flooring is a nice alternative to hard surface flooring," says Jennifer Haug, an interior designer in Minneapolis. "It has the capacity to have many of the same properties as tile, but you have the ability to create your own look. "It's an increasingly popular look and feel that many are going with, not only because of the versatility but also because of the cost effectiveness."

And Graf thinks decorative concrete's popularity will continue to surge.

Says Graf, "I think it will become even more popular as expectation levels grow higher and people have better knowledge about decorative concrete and know what to expect."

Concrete Arts by Graf Architectural Concrete
575 Schommer Dr.
Hudson, WI 54016
WI (715) 386-8750
MN (651) 436-2525
Fax (715) 386-8759
Send Mail Now - Click Here
www.concretearts.com

Michele Dawson

Michele Dawson writes each week on one of the contractor members of The Concrete Network (www.concretenetwork.com). She has written about the home building industry for several years and was on the public affairs staff of the California Building Industry Association.

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