Up...Up...in the air

Another instance of having the right tool for the job came this week during the installation of an excessively heavy piece (340lb) At a client's 2nd floor Master Bath. Since this was a new construction project, we were able to take advantage of a lofted hallway before the railing had been installed. Renting a highlift turned out to be just the trick!



We love creative solutions to difficult problems.

Concrete sealant technology

The number one question posed to me at the home show was regarding sealants. everyone wants to know if concrete is porous. It is very obvious that the silestone people have been doing a great job playing up the porosity of other materials and trying to make them sound unsafe.

Raw concrete, without a sealant, is inherantly porous. But just like granite, it is just a matter of the sealant that you use. Many different methods seal the surface. We use a newer hybrid technology and there are some critical reasons why.

Absorbtion is the first thing that must be sealed against. Raw concrete can absorb moisture by the fact that there are small pores on the surface. Filling these pores is critical, and once it happens, the health concerns which have been beaten into our heads by the ad campaigns of artificial surface manufaturers are no longer valid. This has been done many ways in the past, most notibly by the use of acrylic based sealers, many of which can be found on the sehlf at home depot (price $10-$60/gallon). however, these sealers have a tendancy to wear off and require re-sealing at regular intervals (one or twice per year). if you get too much of these sealers on the piece, then they can actually form a chaulky colored shell that can be chipped off.

Acrylics also dont protect against the second issue that plagues concrete and natural stone....ACID. acids are found in a lot of the more fun things in life...like lemons, wine, vinegar, etc. This is historically where waxes come in. People that dont like the acrylics, love wax. It protects briefly against the acids by acting as a sacrificial layer. the acid eats it before it gets to the concrete. but it gives you just enough time to clean the offending material off before it gets to the surface below. hence, wax needs to be replaced fairly often. its a good thing that they are less expensive. However, you have to get a food-safe version of these waxes...car wax has petroleum in it.

But the question is, what are the acids attacking? concrete is based upon a crystaline structure of Calcium Silicate Hydrate (CSH) between pieces of natural crystaline stone. the acids primarily attack a byproduct of the cement hydration process, namely Calcium Hydroxide. This byproduct is basic (similar to baking soda) and reacts quickly with acids. As soon as acids react with this chemical, it leaves the surface free to be stained. There are two ways to combat this reaction. One is to protect the Calcium Hydroxide, which is what the waxes do, and one is to remove it.

The sealer that we typically use is based upon Lithium Silicate. Lithium Silicate prrovides a ready source of silicate Ions, which react with the Calcuim Hydroxide to form more of our favorite crystal, CSH. The beauty of this reaction is threefold:

First, it removes the calcium hydrate from the surface, eliminating the targets for these acids.
Secondly, The additional crystals means additional strength and sealing of pores.
Thirdly, it continues to react for years. in fact, forever. Concrete is a curing reaction, which slows over time but never stops, which means that the production of Calcium Hydroxide never stops. those free silicate Ions remain, constantly forming more CSH.

If you dont get all the chemistry, then dont worry about it. Just know that it pays to have a guy with a chemical engineering degree building and sealing your concrete.

2007 Austin Home and Garden Show

Set-up

After a couple of weeks of building display items for the show, the real work was in the 2 days preceeding. As this was the first home show we had ever done, it really was surprising to find out that an exhibitor:
1. doesnt need a badge before the show starts...i thought we would need them during setup.
2. gets to drive in the conventions center! you set up your booth with your vehicle right next to you. I had no idea. in the future, I will plan my booth accordingly.
3. the traffic within the convention center is anarchy!

The smartest thing we did was partner up with Kitchen Craft Cabinets. They did a fantastic job of preparing and setting up cabinets for the display. It really gave the booth a classy appearance. It was pretty obvious that they had done a lot of shows like this in the past. I bordered on frantic, they were very cool. But we ghot so mouch done on thursday, that friday morning, we actually had time to pour concrete!

THE SHOW:
Wow, um, exhausting. We had been under the impression that during the three days, we would have a a number of people to talk to. After all, not everyone loves the idea of Concrete Countertops. and there was so much else to see at the show. So we figured that we would have plenty of time to allow each other to rest, grab a bite, walk the show. the booth was PACKED the entire time. Both Kirsten (my lovely and intelligent girlfriend) and myself were talking almost constantly the entire show! By saturday afternoon, we realized that I was going to run out of business cards and Kirsten ducked out to get more at kinko's. She brought back a bottle of wine and some dinner. Since our main display was a wetbar, complete with wineglasses, it only seemed appropriate! during the last hour of the show on saturday, we broke it out to celebrate.

The booth itself featured 3 main displays:
1. Podium with triple black top, on which sat a screen showing selections from my portfolio.
2. Cafe table with Local post-consumer recycled glass, a heavy grind on the top and light polish on the sides. we had a bowl on this and a portfolio book.
3. Main display was a light "green tea Ice cream" wetbar, with cabinets by kitchen craft.
this was the main focal point as it included a sink and faucet, Integral drainboard with the torn paper look and a removable cuttingboard of Zebrawood. it also had a geode that I had been saving and a sparkle of amethyst.

It will be a few months before we know if the show was a true success, but it seemed as though it was.

The Impetus

Several people have talked to me about the value of blogging. however, it wasnt until I saw a blog that referenced me (actually the 3rd that did) until the decision to start my own blog was cemented (excuse the pun). I found the other blog in the most unlikely of ways.
My website host has a function that logs visits and provides statistics on my site. At the beginning of the month, we showed at our first home and garden show. A rather expensive endeavor, I was very curious to monitor the results and see if it made sense to do it all again. Checking the statistics, my web traffic had grown quite a bit. then I checked where the traffic was comming from. although most searched for me directly, there were 2 clickthroughs from a blog. Researhing the blog, I found that someone had commented about the show and our booth. MOST of it was favorable, and ALL of it was informative. This very honest third party opinion didnt know that we had been standing for 10 straight hours on a carpet without padding. We know that they must have stopped by the booth after 7pm, because it was in this final hour of the show on Saturday that we decided to break out a bottle of wine to toast our success and the end of a very long day. We felt that the wine was a classy touch to a classy product offering. We still think it was, and appropriate considering that the main display was a wet bar! and, it was a very good bottle of wine.