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Polished Concrete on Living Room Floors

Wherever there is a concrete slab, a practical flooring choice is polishing and applying resin to the surface, so you don’t need any coating. The result is a smooth and slightly shiny floor.

More common in utility areas, kitchens and bathrooms, polished concrete floors are actually an amazing choice for the living room as well, as you’ll see in photos throughout this article.

The advantages are low price, small thickness, high strength and durability. The resin makes it also water resistant.

Which decoration style goes well in a living room with polished concrete flooring?

Although this flooring has a more industrial feel, it matches anything. You can have industrial-looking finishes and decoration too, or contrast it with totally opposite styles.

It’s not like you have to decide if your decoration is/will be minimalist or cozy. I’m just showing you opposite examples so you don’t worry that this floor won’t match your living room decoration.

It will. So you can mix all furniture and decoration items you love, no matter where you’ll end up in a minimalist – cozy scale.

Expansion/movement joints in polished concrete floors

This is usually a seamless floor. But the larger the area, the more likely there’ll be cracks. Cracks are inevitable, but they can be more discreet or larger.

The more careful the execution, the more discreet the cracks will be too. It’s essential to find an experienced professional to guarantee a good result.

To minimize cracks, you can have expansion/movement joints forming squares. The floor will expand square by square, so the cracks will follow the joints and get almost imperceptible.

You can read technical details about this option here.

Pigment colored concrete living room floors

You can add a powdered pigment to the dough, in some color options, to make the floor colored. Or marble powder to make it white.

Read more about this here.

Is polished concrete floor the best option for your living room?

If you want the same flooring throughout the house, concrete is a great option.

However, if you are bothered by cracks, and want to control the color and appearance of the floor stains, it is more recommended to choose a concrete-look porcelain tile. Concrete flooring is an artisanal job, which may come out differently from your expectation.

Other disadvantages are:

• slower and more delicate execution;
• must be resealed once a year to keep moisture out;
• concrete floors are durable and resistant to water, scratches and stains, but not so much to impact. If something heavy falls onto the floor, it may break a piece of it;
• because it is a cold flooring, it is ideal for hot places. For cold homes, consider another option, or avoid the cold by placing rugs in strategic places;
• hard and slippery surface is not ideal for children and elders.

If you’re still in doubt if this is the best option for your home, you’d better compare different material options of living room and bedroom flooring.

In this article, you’ll get a panorama of a number of options, its pros and cons, and for which case each one is more recommended.