How colorful stains, dyes, marbling and effects can help you do more with exposed concrete flooring.

Today’s commercial interiors are increasingly being defined by organic shapes, playful palettes and inviting contrasts of opposing materials, such as wood accents and exposed concrete flooring. For both commercial and residential design pros, there’s an opportunity to expand the way you think about using color underfoot — specifically in the form of concrete stains and finishes.

“Whether you’re reclaiming a beautiful old warehouse space for a loft or office, or designing a retail space from scratch, you can do so much more now with concrete flooring than just traditional polished gray,” says Sue Wadden, Director of Color Marketing at Sherwin-Williams.

From retail to office environments, interiors today need to be human, engaging, adaptive, durable and high-performing — and that includes flooring. With concrete, new technology is leading the way, as enhanced stains, reactive dyes and protective concrete coatings offer vivid, customizable colors and organic effects.

Here’s a look at three ways you can expand your design possibilities using exposed concrete flooring:

1. Solid-color stains. When it comes to adding color to a properly treated and conditioned smooth concrete floor surface, your palette is virtually unlimited. Water-based solutions like H&C^® ACRYLA-DECK^® Water-Based Solid Color 100% Acrylic Deck Coating or H&C COLORTOP™ Water-Based Solid Color Concrete Stain can be tinted to match any color. ACRYLA-DECK provides resistance to chalking. COLORTOP provides additional durability and color-retention features, including resistance to salts, acids, alkalis, water, UV rays and oil.

   Both products offer a natural sheen, but you can also specify a clear coat on top, to add a glossy finish that looks fantastic in spaces where natural light is a key design element.

2. Marbling and organic effects. For projects where you want to go beyond a solid-color result and provide your client with a more signature design feature, such as swirls, layers of color depth or patterning, you can explore specifying a metallic coating or reactive dyes.

   H&C Pro Series Metallic Flooring System allows you and your contractor to build up a bold and beautiful result in layers. The system starts with a durable basecoat, to which you can add a metallic coat, and a vibrant color and finish coat to achieve your final desired look. There are 30 colors to choose from, which you can mix and match, and your final finish can come in either satin or gloss.

   For spaces where you want the concrete floor to retain an earthier, organic look that highlights and celebrates its natural imperfections — such as in spaces where the floor needs to complement exposed wood beams — a reactive stain is the best solution.

   H&C Infusion^® Reactive Concrete Stains creates a translucent, variegated appearance, so small cracks and other imperfections in the concrete take on rich, lustrous character. This solution comes in 12 standard colors that can be intermixed to achieve a custom look.

3. Texture + color. Finally, in projects where you have a heavy traffic area that requires a texture for slip resistance, you can specify a combination concrete resurfacing solution with a color application.

   H&C Dura-Top™ Heavy Traffic Concrete Resurfacer is a low-maintenance, abrasion-resistant polymer that can be stamped or troweled to achieve your desired design or texture. A rich palette of color possibilities comes into play with the addition of a Dura-TopConcrete Resurfacer Color Pack, which can be added to the mixture as a pigment. The Color Packs come in 30 colors, in a spectrum that ranges from Cotton Ball to Pepper Black.

“Concrete has so much design potential,” Wadden says, “which is great since it’s everywhere now, from commercial spaces to multifamily lofts. A more organic-looking concrete finish can function as a neutral base that allows the rest of the interior’s materials and finishes to be the hero. Or you can get really colorful with it and make the floor the star. It’s really up to you.”