Products used: Exposed Aggregate

Summary:

Riverhead, an area steeped in history and just 20 minutes North West of Auckland, is the location of Cavalier Homes’ latest show home. The old style, original homes of the area inspired the modern yet classic style home chosen by Colin Beaumont, Director of Cavalier Homes, which features a stunningly beautiful, black polished concrete floor.

“We chose the Portage Estate for this showhome as the western corridor is a real growth zone for residential construction,” explains Colin. “We settled on a modern classic design in weatherboard with corner boxes and window facings to work in with the history of the area.”

The interior of the house features a modern décor with an alfresco outdoor dining space off the main living area to create the indoor, outdoor flow that is a prerequisite for modern homes.

“When we built our own home in 2008 we chose a black polished floor and were so pleased with the result that we wanted to recreate the look in this showhome,” adds Colin.

“We have been Cavalier’s concrete supplier for quite some time and when we were asked to supply a mix for a polished concrete floor we were happy to work with Colin to achieve the look he was after,” says Adaleen Griffith, National Masonry Sales Manager for Firth.

Colin chose ‘Smoke’, the darkest of the blacks from Firth’s Atmospheric range of black oxides. A smaller 13mm aggregate chip was used with a low slump 30MPa mix so that, once the finished slab was ground and polished, the chip was more evenly distributed through the floor and denser than if a standard size aggregate were used.

The floor was sectioned into large areas with a 10mm expansion cut which was filled with grey grout as a decorative feature.

Jason Torbet and his team from Polished Concrete were asked to finish the job. “We had a pre-start meeting with Cavalier and Firth to go over some of the possible options for the mix design,” said  Jason. “Firth helped prepare some samples that we could apply our grinding and polishing process to. There were several different mixes from a white aggregate and cement combo to the winning black aggregate with black oxide decorative mix.”

Jason explains that black floors are generally hard to use a diamond polish finish on as the black background shows up air holes and scratches from the grinding and polishing process. “The end result was well worth the extra effort as the black adds great contrast to the clean white walls,” adds Jason.

“We were very impressed with how Cavalier listened to our suggestions and I think the floor is a reflection on what can be achieved when you have a good relationship with the client, builder, polisher and concrete supplier.”

Cavalier Homes Norwest Ltd is a family owned and run business bought by Colin in 2012. Colin’s wife Lorraine looks after the administration and son Blair is the Construction Manager. With two sales people and an operations manager it’s a compact but effective team with a company motto of  ‘quality at an affordable price’.

“We are very happy with the new showhome and think that the black floor is spectacular,” said Lorraine.  “It is impressive and everyone that views it says it is just fabulous and that they have never seen a polished floor like this before. Putting it in was definitely the right decision.”

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