Of everything we install, this is the one where the conversation beforehand matters most, because it is the only floor nobody can show you in advance.
A metallic pour is the closest thing in our trade to a piece of work rather than a product. Pigmented resin gets poured and then moved, and the movement in it is made on the day by somebody standing on the floor with a tool, reacting to what the resin is actually doing. Which means two things that people are rarely told clearly enough before they commit. The pattern cannot be previewed, and the pattern cannot be repeated. Those are not disclaimers. They are the point of the floor, and they are also why the prep bar is higher here than anywhere else.
The movement happens on the day
A metallic finish is not printed and not laid out to a plan. The metallic pigments suspend in the resin, and as the resin spreads and settles those pigments drift at different rates, which is what produces the depth and the veining. We direct that: the way material is poured, where it is pushed, how it gets worked, whether a second color gets introduced and when. But we are steering something that is in motion, not drawing a picture.
So a room gets a character rather than a layout. We can talk about palette, about whether the figure should be tight and busy or broad and slow, about which way the eye should travel when you walk in. We cannot promise there will be a particular swirl in a particular place, and anybody who promises that is describing a floor they have not poured yet.
The metallic pigments suspend in the resin, and as the resin spreads and settles those pigments drift at different rates, which is what produces the depth and the veining.
No two of these are the same, including yours
Every metallic floor we have ever installed is unlike every other one, which is most of why people want them and occasionally why somebody is disappointed. If you have seen a photograph you loved and your heart is set on that exact floor, a metallic pour is the wrong system to ask for. You will get something of the same family, in the same colors, with its own figure, and that is the most anybody can promise you.
The way to arrive at this happy is to come at it from the feeling rather than the image. Dark and deep with slow movement reads very differently from bright with a lot of contrast, and the same palette behaves differently in a small room than in an open one. We would rather spend that conversation on tone and mood and let the floor be itself than have you measuring the finished pour against a picture from somebody else’s showroom.
So the list of things you get to decide is palette, tone and how busy the figure should be. The list of things nobody decides is where that figure actually lands, because the pattern is made once, during the pour, and then it is the floor you have. The third thing worth knowing before you commit is that the slab underneath has to be in better shape for this than for a flake build.
Smooth gloss hides nothing, so the slab has to be right
This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that decides whether the floor is any good. A flake build is forgiving: the chip layer is a textured mass that absorbs small imperfections in the concrete underneath, and a minor dip or a slightly rough patch disappears into it. A metallic finish is a smooth mirror. Everything it is sitting on is visible through it, and gloss exaggerates rather than hides.
A high spot reads as a bright band where the light catches it differently. A low spot holds its own reflection and looks like a shadow in the floor. A crack that was filled but not ground perfectly flat telegraphs straight through the finish. A patch of slab that took the primer differently from its neighbor can change how the pigment settles over it. None of that is a product failure. It is a clear film reporting the concrete underneath it at full size.
So the grind on a metallic job is longer and fussier than on a garage, the crack work gets chased further, and we are harder about flatness before anything gets poured. Our write-up on metallic floors around Ellisville covers what we tend to find on the older in-town pours, and the metallic epoxy page explains how the system is built up underneath the decorative layer.
A high spot reads as a bright band where the light catches it differently. A low spot holds its own reflection and looks like a shadow in the floor.
Where these floors belong, and where they do not
Metallic earns its place where the floor is part of what the room is saying. Showrooms, front rooms, a reception space, a retail floor somebody walks into and looks down. Anywhere the floor is doing work beyond being walked on.
Where we will talk you out of it is anywhere that is going to be wet. A smooth gloss surface and standing water are a bad combination, and the texture that makes a floor safe underfoot is exactly the texture that would spoil the finish. A kitchen, a wash bay, a pool surround or a patio all want something built with grip in it instead. A garage sits in the middle: it can be done and it looks tremendous, but it will show tire marks and dust more readily than a dark flake blend, and a working garage where things get dropped is probably happier with chip.
Lighting does half the work
A metallic floor is a reflective surface, so what is above it changes what you see in it. Downlights put bright pools on the floor and make the figure look sharper and more dramatic where they land. A big window gives you a floor that changes through the day, which is lovely and also means the color you approve at noon is not quite the color at six. Diffused light across a ceiling evens the whole thing out and makes the movement read softer.
None of that is a problem, it is just worth deciding deliberately. If the lighting in the room is going to change as part of the same project, we want to know before the pour, because a palette chosen under a work light is not the palette you will live with under what goes in afterwards.
Living with one
Day to day it is the same as anything else we put down: a dust mop and a neutral cleaner, nothing to wax, nothing to reseal. The difference is what it shows you between mops. A glossy floor picks up dust the afternoon it arrives, in the same way a dark car does, and that is worth knowing in advance rather than finding out. Timings are the usual ones on a residential pour: walk on it at 12 hours, furniture back at 24. The finished floors are the right place to get a feel for the range before you talk palette with us.
Questions about metallic floors
Can you show me exactly what mine will look like?
No, and nobody honestly can. We can show you finished floors in the palette you are considering and describe how busy or how slow the figure will be, but the movement is created during the pour. Every one of these floors is unique, including the one in your room.
Is it slippery?
Dry it is fine. Wet it is a smooth gloss surface, so we do not put metallic anywhere that sees standing water. For a kitchen, a wash area or anything outdoors we specify a system with texture built into it instead.
Does my slab need more prep than for a flake floor?
Yes. Flake texture absorbs small imperfections, and a mirror finish reveals them. Flatness, crack work and a consistent profile all matter more here, which is why the grind on a metallic job takes longer.
Talk palette with us standing in the room
Tell Kevin what the space is for and what you want someone to feel walking into it. We will look at the slab, say whether it is flat enough for a mirror finish, and work out the palette with you. Ask us to bring the swatch to the room rather than deciding off a screen, because the light in there is going to change the answer. There are Ellisville floors we have poured that no camera has ever done justice to.