What is polished concrete?
A. During my travels across North America I’ve come across polished concrete floors dating back to the late 1920s. Two notable such examples were on the West Coast; the lodge at Yosemite National Park and at a little Church in East Vancouver, BC in both cases the floors were polished, cut into wonderful graphics and motifs then chemically stained. The terminology polished concrete was originally used to describe the process whereby a typical grey or colored concrete floor was coated with a wax product and then highly polished. The wax used was generally powdered bee wax which was melted and mixed with turpentine and a mineral pigment, if required. It was applied while still warm (and liquid), with powdered French chalk sprinkled over the surface some 12 hours later. The surface was then polished by rubbing vigorously with a soft cloth. Hence the term “polished concrete floors”. Today, while the name remains, the final surface finish can be achieved in a variety of ways; all of which ar
