Let’s celebrate the fact that we already managed to fail our New Year’s resolutions, and look forward to the success of future failures! If you at all feel guilty for not starting them yet; don’t despair, you can always fail them again next year!

Here’s a couple of ideas that you can do with the extra time that you now have at your disposal because you don’t have to be bogged down with the task of fulfilling those dreadfully time-consuming resolutions anymore:

1. Drink lots of wine: it is a great way to forget about your sorrows, and just relax. Just don’t drink too much, it might amplify those sorrows, and nobody likes to listen to sorry stories anyway.
2. Day-dream: simply stare out the window. You’re not bothering anybody, and the return on investment is stunning relaxation. Just make sure to ignore all the work that will be piling up. The discomfort and stress of worrying about work is just so unnecessary.
3. Story books: start reading a book that you can’t put down; and don’t put it down. Screw responsibilities. Who need them anyway?
4. Justification: make a list of all the valid excuses that you can think of for not being as productive and successful as you thought you’d be when you were relaxing last December.

There is one other thing that you can do: look for ideas to improve yourself and your surroundings. You can start by clicking here. It may give you a couple of other goals to look forward to; and what better way can we get to visualise our goals than through actually seeing what they could look like.

Here’s to a good life,

Michael – your partner in beautiful surroundings

But, let me backtrack a little.

The first time I saw Richard Mulholland was a couple of years ago at an ABSA small business breakfast where he was the main speaker.

This guy, with his tattoos protruding from his T-shirt, a chain hanging from his pants – presumably connected to his wallet – and his wild hairdo; looked exactly like someone who should not be addressing a crowd of small business owners… and then he started speaking.

It was quite obvious that he knew a lot about business and mostly everything related to it.

He intrigued us, gave a couple of excellent tips, mentioned that he owned a company called Missing Link, and then left.

Fast track forward to 2011, when we were contracted to make the new Missing Link offices in Fourways nice, and our paths cross again.

These are thrilling offices so far removed from the conventional officey feel that you would be forgiven for not taking it seriously the first time around.

And now it was our baby. We helped design and implement the floors of the offices that was rated the World’s Coolest Offices for 2011 by Inc. Magazine in New York. Your heard right; World’s Coolest Offices!

That makes us the World’s Coolest Office implementation guys!

And now, our work was on Top Billing!

Isn’t that AWESOME?

Okay, enough about us, let’s talk about the Missing Link offices again. They have a slide, a shooting range, a tattoo parlour, Richard’s office is in a tree house, the reception is a bathroom… Heck, watch the video to see more!

Let me give you a little background on the project and what we did. Someone painted black and white squares on the floor. It looked quite cool for about a week, and then started peeling off.

Now, when you are a busy office, and lots of people walk through you every day, and the people working in you keep damaging your floors, how would you feel?

This is exactly the way the Missing Link offices felt: It had nowhere to go, and so too did the people working there have nowhere to go. And then we got involved.

We moved everyone into the top restaurant section, made a couple of jokes about the inconvenience that we are causing. Then made fun at the way they looked all cramped up into the little space. Then made fun of how dusty they all started looking. Then we actually started to feel sorry for them. And then we just left them to do their jobs, and us ours.

In eight days (Including the weekends), we managed to rip all their floors up, polish the screed, fix the massive problems with the substrate and install new floors for them. By day 9 we re-installed their desks, and by day 10 they were continuing work as if nothing ever happened, except for one massive difference: their floors were now award-winning floors! And we did it!

And guess what product we used there? Vinyl. Like the stuff that gets put into hospitals, and the stuff that was in your parent’s kitchens when you grew up. Yes that stuff that we all know as the most boring, most unimaginative, and ugliest floors ever.

You should see the new stuff though. It’s awesome… Really expensive, but Awesome!

And it’s stronger and more durable than most things!

But the coolest thing about these new products is the range. There is nothing else like it; it’s awesome!

So, to Missing Link, the people with the coolest offices in the world, from Creative Touches, the people who make the coolest offices in the world, congratulations for being aired on Top Billing. You guys rock!

Does it not irritate you to death how Love, in addition to everything beautiful and fragile gets over commercialised nowadays?

You are being tube-fed to purchase things that does not really show love, but the size of your wallet, and the people who profit most from this are the guys that manage to tweak that first line just right to make the masses think – no, feel – that this will be their original, one of a kind, gift to BLA BLA BLA BLA.

Beauty often is in the little thing, so here’s an idea:

Instead of going out to a restaurant tonight, go get a nice blanket, a bottle of wine, two oversized glasses, a box of strawberries, some whipped cream, and sugar.

Now open the blanket up on the lawn, put something stable down for the glasses to stand on, and enjoy a simple evening together while sharing laughter, under the stars.

Optionally add a couple of really nice candles, and remember to dip the strawberries in the cream and then sprinkle some sugar over that before feeding it to other one on the blanket.

This can get messy, but that’s part of the fun! Later, some candles around the bath filled with foam will definitely get rid of the sticky strawberries…

Remember, creativity can make all the difference!

Here’s to your journey,

Enjoy.

PS: If you are in Europe now, don’t try this. You’ll freeze to death!

I wish for you this coming year peace, prosperity, health and happiness.

May you and your loved ones be blessed; and may you all be engulfed by the beauty that is ever-present around; and in us of all. And may our wonderful country be blessed for all of us who live in it.

Happy New Year.

Your journey starts – again – here.

Michael

SatinCrete Feature wall

… Just not in my pocket!

So, the question is; where is it? The obvious response would be, in everyone else’s pockets, right? Wrong!

The money is still all over the place. You see, no company and no one can survive if money is in everyone’s pockets. So too can you not survive to buy food, pay the house, or any necessities if money is in everyone’s pockets. People are holding money back because they are scared to spend and waste it. And that creates a downward spiral in the economy and in everyone else’s lives. (Okay, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but please stay with me here)

Quartz strip walling

What needs to be asked is: now that the bubble has burst, and money does not flow around so freely anymore, what do I spend my money on so that it can come back to me? And the answer is; investments. Not so much the stock market – especially not now – but rather anything that can make you money because it increased in value since you bought it.

Obviously a car does not fall into that category, so too would it seem a house would not fall into that category anymore.

You can now buy a house on an auction for a fraction of the price that you would have paid for it two years ago, or a piece of land around a not-fully-developed golf estate for half the price than what it was originally advertised for, and I know there are a lot of deals like that all over the place at the moment. But are these really good deals? Or is it simply the market correcting itself after a couple of years of ludicrous buying and selling, over inflated by real-estate agent’s sales talk, supply and demand, and the fact that credit was so easy to come by?

If you bought a townhouse for R 1 million two years ago; is it still worth that? The fact is that people will only buy something that they like, can afford, and perceive as higher value than another similar offer; and if they cannot afford the R 1million asking price, your house can be worth R10 million, and they still will not buy it.

So, what is there to be done? Say for instance you live in a townhouse complex where all the houses look similar, and you need to sell it. You would like to get R1 million for it, but the guy next door is also selling his for R 1 million or just a little under. Who’s going to get the deal? Your neighbour – unless you can increase the value of your offering – because like anything else, if you have beter features in your product, it can be sold for a higher price or at least sold easier.

Suede painted wall complimenting Colour Hardener floor

Take a car for instance. If you were to put two 3 Series BMW’s of the same year model next to each other, the one with leather seats and electric windows and the other with fabric seats and manual windows, all other things being equal, the first one will either sell for a higher price or sell much easier. And that is the same for your house.

If you have a house in a townhouse complex, the comparison is far easier than if you have a free standing house in an established suburb, but the comparison can still be made: Houses in the same area, generally sell for around the same price.

You see, everyone wants to sell, especially their investment properties which have recently become a financial burden. This means that all of a sudden, your neighbour – or the guy living a few houses from you – has just become your biggest competition. And the guy walking into your house to see if they want to buy this one; your most important client. But as with any client, they will look for the best deal. Not always the amount that they have to spend, they might have the R1 million that you are asking, but if your neighbour is selling for under R 1 million, they will purchase his house.

Except if you can give them more value; and that is not as difficult as you might think. You just need to start thinking a little out of the box.

Let’s take the car example again, but this time two different makes. A couple of years ago, BMW introduced its first built-in GPS screen. Nice and original, looks really cool, and the lady telling you when to turn left or right and when to make a U-turn if you missed your turn-off was just the pits! Audi did not have that feature yet, and a lot of people that was in the market for an Audi thought “What the heck, lets buy the Beemer; this little screen is SOOO cool!” or “Let’s wait until Audi brings that out as well.”

The same should go for your house. A nice fresh coat of paint – unless the paint is old and shabby – is notgoing to do the trick: all houses have paint. Also will a couple of different colours, trying to make it look a bit original, not cut it. It might just make your prospect – your client – think: “Hectic, now I will have to repaint the entire bloody house to fit in with my furniture and taste! How much extra is that going to cost me?”

Qurtz strip walling used as water feature

No, you will have to dig a little further. There are amazing products on the market! Very few people have it, but everyone that sees it, wants it. These are the products (or features) that you want in order to increase the perceived value of your house. Invest a little to get a lot more out.

Now let’s go back to your townhouse. Your house is identical in size and design to that of your neighbour’s, but you have these extra little features added to it that makes the client’s wife love it. You are asking R1 million, your neighbour wants the same. You have this nice little water feature by the entrance, immediately calming your prospect as they walk in. As you enter the front door, instead of the usual scratch-plaster wall painted in beige on the far end of the entrance hall, you have this lovely red SatinCrete or Stucco wall that can make virtually any piece of furniture look absolutely posh – the client’s wife loves it. It goes perfectly with that little antique table and flower vase that she inherited from her grandma, but that has been standing in the garage all these years because it didn’t work with the beige walls in their previous house.

Sandstone chunks

As you turn left into the living area, the far end of the wall has this lovely rough quartzite stone strip wall, breaking the feel of the rest of the room into something exquisite. Creating a feeling of depth and luxury. The three down-lights that you had installed about 30 centimetres from the stone wall, creates such an emphasis of light and dark shadows on the stone, that no one can do anything else but comment on this stunning feature that you have created – you genius, you!

On your way to the kitchen, you have a wall perfectly techniqued in a dark-brown suede effect. And the client is sold. They tell you that they are firstly going to have a look at your neighbour’s house, but return 10 minutes later to sign the offer to purchase as “that other house was just so boring!” “It looked exactly like all the other places that we have seen over the past two weekends!” “This one is just absolutely beautiful!” “We can definitely see ourselves living here!” “You are just so creative!”

Red Stucco feature walls and ceiling

And how much did it cost you? Not as much as you might think. You created a couple of features. It took us a week to complete the project. Obviously you don’t tell your clients that much, you just nod and smile as you think about how easy that went.

And that, my friend, is quick return on investment: Creating something really beautiful, really original, really stunning, something that blends well with everyone’s tastes and accessories, something that creates the perception of great taste, and lovely luxury and richness, and that sells for a good mark-up, or at least sells quickly.

In these times we must work clever with our money. That does however not mean that we must leave it in our pockets. Rather, invest it on something that will add value, and it will realise itself in profit; for you.

About the author: Michael Pretorius is an experienced interior designer and owner of Creative Touches interiors. For more information you can visit www.creativetouches.co.za or call him directly on 082-392-3336

Sandstone and Water feature

Cemcrete SatinCrete

Cemcrete SatinCrete and Quartz cladding

Sandstone Water feature

So, we might have only been here for a few thousand years, or have been evolving for the last couple of hundred thousand years; who knows? One thing that we do know, however, is that we’re here now, and now is the only time that we can create and be creative.

The best thing about Creativity is that it often does not have to take so much time, or have to be so complicated that we need to leave it to the tree-huggers, or as John Robby from 702 put it so eloquently the other day; the Ponytails.

But you might still remember me from the time when I used to have a ponytail (it wasn’t that long ago… at least does not feel that long ago). In the meantime I’ve just lost so much hair that if I still had a ponytail, I would have been condoned to judgemental comments such as: dirty guy who cannot accept when an era has passed… an era for the top of his head, that is.

But if the years have taught me one thing by now, it is that the more creative you try to be, the more creative you become.

The point that I’m trying to make here is actually so for removed from my receding hairline or my inclination to a self-proclaimed creativity.

What I’m trying to get to is that you do not have to be a creative genius to make things around you look stunningly creative, beautiful, and comfortable.

But you do need to be a genius, and that genius would take three steps to come out:

1. Walk through your house and see where one of these products would work nicely.
2. Think of how nice it would be if everyone congratulated you on a brilliant idea to have this done here.
3. (Here’s the genius part) pick up the phone, and get hold of me. I’ll do the rest, and the best of it all is that I will do it for you in record time! One day it’s boring, the next it’s beautiful…

And I can assure you, you won’t lose any hair doing this; and I’ll let you take all the credit for your genius.

Brilliant, isn’t it? Absolute creative genius!

About the author: Michael Pretorius is an experienced interior designer and owner of Creative Touches interiors. For more information you can visit www.creativetouches.co.za or call him directly on 082-392-3336

Sandstone and wooden floor

Strip wall cladding

Now, picture this: you are excited about making something beautiful in your home, there’s no time to waste because the sooner you can have this, the better; it’s almost year-end, and it’s going to look absolutely stunning. You make the decision to purchase it, and low-and-behold, there is a problem…

Exactly like with a speeding fine, a problem with a project in your house will lead to money thrown in the water. You could have bought a couple of CD’s or taken the dog for grooming (in the case of a speeding fine), or taken a vacation (in the case of a renovation project). You could have done anything wasteful – that you would not usually justify – but that would have been better than spending it on failure.

So, how do you fix these two problems? Simple! Here’s the two answers:

• Speeding fine: drive slower at all times! (Sorry, I had to)
• Renovating your home: make sure that you use qualified people, companies with good reputations, who invest in themselves, their equipment, and their image, and – extremely important – try using beautiful products that are not so dependant on the quality of your building or substrate.

Examples of these products would be Wooden floors and Sandstone clads.

Wooden floors do not have to be fixed to your screed, and can be done as a floating system. We use the Elastilon® system.

Sandstone or other stone clads are extremely forgiving when it comes to movement in the substrate, and as such, if cracks do form, you will never notice them.

Here’s the deal: We have the equipment, the people with the know-how, and we can do it really quickly for you. It is not particularly cheap, but neither are you, so go on, look at some areas that you think will look nice as a feature with a product in one of these pictures, take the measurements and click here to fill in the “request a quote” (Click here) form.

I will take it from there. We can usually do a decent sized wall or floor in one or two days, so the disruption to you will be minimal.

Caramel Wheat special

Spoil yourself, and impress everyone coming over for Christmas, with warmth, originality and exquisiteness.

This will not become a grudge purchase. That I can assure you.

We are running a special on our French Oak Oxford range as indicated in the picture.

Request a quote.

See our range of Wooden floors

Look at some of our Sandstone and stone clads

About the author: Michael Pretorius is an experienced interior designer and owner of Creative Touches interiors. For more information you can visit www.creativetouches.co.za or call him directly on 082-392-3336

We install these floors using the Elastilon self adhesive underlay

To request a quotation, please click here. (In the “comments” box, please fill in the floor that you are interested in)

Bamboo Vertical Carbonated

Bamboo Horizontal Carbonated

Bamboo Strandwoven Solid

Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry)

Cumaru (Brizillian Teak)

American Walnut

African Zebrano

European White Oak

American Red Oak

European Wild Maple Select

Euro Wild Maple Rustic

Euro Oak White Wash

African Rosewood

Grand Plank Caramel

Grand Plank Nougat

Grand Plank Natural

Oak Natural Unfinished

Oak Natural Sealed

Oak Natural Whitewash

Hevea Sport Select

Beech Sport Select

To request a quotation, please click here. (In the “comments” box, please fill in the floor that you are interested in)

Poor project management. House renovation, the cupboards have already been installed, walls are painted, then the ceiling is Rhinolited, and two plug points are chased.

What is the most petrifying problem facing you when you build a new house or take on a large renovation project? The waste of your money and time? The broken trust of your contractor when things eventually start going wrong? The stress that it puts onto you and your family? Or your reputation when managing a project for your company?

That helpless feeling when you realise you are working with incompetency – does not matter how competent your builder is; when things start going wrong, what can he do to fix it? He is not building your house, it’s his workers, and they are mostly not capable of making the decisions that will positively benefit your builder; or you for that matter. They will be happier sitting under a tree than laying bricks.

No, the biggest problem is having your dream shattered: you’ve spent so much time discussing your ideas, dreaming of how it will be when finished, getting excited about the whole idea. And when the big day arrive – all the approvals have been made, the budgets are set – and the first shovel hits the ground to lay the foundation. You can hardly wait! And the project plan says five months from now you will be in your new home!

But, this hardly ever happens.

The purpose of this article is to give you a new way of approach to building or renovating. It might seem like a lot to take in, but will be worth your while. At the end of the day it is you who wants to build, and it is you who needs to live in the new house. And it is your money.

Building a new house usually works like this: You start planning the project with your architect. Over the next few weeks you refine the plans, bringing in some new ideas, taking out some old ones, paging through magazines looking for the ultimate way of utilising different areas in the design. Eventually you submit your plans for approval.

Then you start looking for a builder. The architect or a friend of yours might suggest one. You ask for quotes, choose the one that falls inside your framework of trustworthiness, price, and reference, and then you start building.

The builder has quoted you on everything; from laying the foundation right down to the last lick of paint. He might have included things like tiling, putting in cornices and skirting, window frames, plumbing, and all the small things that builders should be able to do. Does this still sound familiar? You see; why shouldn’t he be able to do it? Most of these things are easy when you break it down into its small components, not so?

Absolutely right they are! But have you stopped to consider the implications when something goes wrong with one of these things?

Your builder will probably not be on site all the time, and why should he? He’s busy running an extremely difficult business. He needs to make sales, sort out accounting problems, look at the new website that needs to go up, have meetings with old clients and new prospects, draw up quotes, and every now and then, get back to your site to see if the foreman and the workers are doing their jobs. It is not his job to lay the bricks.

So he trusts that his team of bricklayers will be able to anticipate the laying of the pipes for the plumbing and electricity, put in the cornices, and paint the house. And why shouldn’t they be able to? They have done it before… we will not know to what level of success, or how many times they had to redo it, but they have done it before.

So the project management that you were promised falls by the wayside, mistakes start occurring because everything needs to happen at the same time, and before you know it, you are sitting at month eight already and the walls are not even painted yet. The workers are getting bored with what they are busy doing – not that they really cared in the first place – they are getting tired of being screamed at, more and more mistakes are being made, and you are the one fitting the final bill.

A building project usually works like this: the foundation gets laid, then the walls goes up. While the walls are going up, some of them are getting plastered because progress seems to be so good with the building. Before the plaster is finished, the roof starts going up, and the areas that was plastered a couple of days ago gets their first coat of plaster primer (hopefully not, but very possibly, contractors PVA) without taking into account that the walls are still busy curing, the plaster should not have been up yet, but now that it is, it should also still be curing, and not getting painted over.

Progress seems to be excellent! It has not even been two months and the roof is already going up! And then someone realises that the plug points and plumbing needs to be laid, so the chasing begins. Through the plaster that was not properly cured, but that already has been primered. And things start to go south from here…

I’d like to suggest to you a new way of thinking about building, because at the end of the day it is your responsibility, whether you like it or not, to get a nice house, and to live in it. How you approach the project at the beginning will determine the result that you get:

The builder should not do all of this! So don’t hire him for all of this! If it fails, it will be your fault, but you would want to blame him! He was trying to make a sale, and you were trying to save money and make it easy for yourself! Don’t!

The construction process should go like this:

• The builder lays the foundation and starts building the walls. With him the electrician and plumber plans and implements their pipes so that by the time the walls are up, the plug boxes are in and so too the plumbing. The window and door guy must also be involved here. Make sure that the bricklayers are not also the window installers; your windows will be skew.
• Then the builder stops and the roofing guy comes in.
• Once the roof is up, the ceiling guy comes in.
• When the ceilings are done and Rhinolited, the plasterer comes in.
• When the plastering is done, your choice of finishing work can start. At this stage there should still not be any screed on the floors, just bare concrete. There should be no cornices or any other finish inside or outside the house, not even plaster primer. This effectively gives you flexibility in choosing finishes. (Please note here that the finishing should not be an afterthought. If the building project was done wrong, the finish will be wrong. Also note that the finishing project can easily cost the same as the building project, so don’t fool yourself: your structure is you’re your structure, you finish is your home)

Each stage of the construction process should involve different people. This way you can actually hold individuals responsible for smaller aspects of the project, thereby eliminating a lot of confusion and finger-pointing.

When putting this suggestion onto paper, it will appear to take a lot longer, and might appear to cost a lot more, but let’s just quickly think about it: your builder’s initial estimation of five months will be over shot in any case. So too will the budget because of the mistakes that has been made.

If you start taking control of the major steps of your building project and get specialists in to micro-manage their projects, your chances of success will be much, much higher.

And please, do not work from the assumption that the finish will cover the building’s imperfections. Finishes are thin, decorative and protective products, not quick fixes.

About the author: Michael Pretorius is an experienced interior designer and owner of Creative Touches interiors. For more information you can visit www.creativetouches.co.za or call him directly on 082-392-3336

There are five different suctions in this room alone. Not even paint will cover this without showing shine-through..

In general, suction describes a structure’s ability to absorb moisture. This means, the rate at which the surface will take moisture out of your wet finish, and with it, take some of the product’s adhesive components. Making it stick.

Suction is therefore essential for creating a proper bond between the finish and the structure, but suction can also be the finish’s worst enemy. As a result, there is a fine line that needs to be drawn between too much suction and too little suction.

As an added problematic bonus to the variable of too much or too little suction; you get suction variations over the surface of the same structure as well as suction caused through settlement or shrinkage cracks.

This is essential reading if you are building or renovating a house. You are spending a lot of money, and you want something that will look good; spend the time to read these couple of pages.

This paper will describe the following:

• Too much and too little suction
• Suction differences over the same surface
• Cement crystallisation and suction (for cementitious adhesives, cementitious waterproofing products, and decorative cement finishes)
• Shrinkage cracks, dehydration and capillary action.
• A word of warning.

Too much or too little suction

Reducing the amount of suction in this weak plaster before applying further preparation materials with CemBond

As a rule of thumb, suction on an unfinished surface, for instance a newly plastered wall or a bare concrete floor, will usually be too much. This can be attributed to the quality of cement used in the structure, the type of aggregate (sand or stone mixed with the cement), the amount of curing done on the structure, temperature fluctuations during the drying and curing time of the cement, how it was applied, whether the applicator followed the rules of cement application; and a lot of other variables.

In essence, there are not a lot of people who know what cement really is and how it works, and as a result, not a lot of people who does it right.

Suction equalised over wall with different textures. You can see how the textures are still shining through. The suction is however now right, and if you work over this, nothing should shine through in your finish.

Too much suction has the effect that it draws the moisture out of your finish too quickly, and as a result, hinders the product from properly curing. This means that the product can crack, set much softer than what it’s supposed to, become dusty, and even delaminate from the surface.

Too little suction will cause the product not to adhere to the surface that it is applied to, meaning that it might crack or delaminate.

Suction also influences the colour of the finish in that the pigmentation process reacts differently when it dries out quickly, as opposed to when it stays wet longer.

We need to therefore be aware of the requirements of a surface and do the right preparation, before starting to do any application of our finish.

Suction differences over the same surface

A newly chased plug point. Suction variances are inevitable!

Picture for a moment one of the most common occurrences on a building site: The wall is perfectly plastered, everything seems fine, the plaster looks good, and then you realise that it would be nice to have an extra plug point in that wall. The wall does not have its finish on yet, so no costs have gone into that. So you ask the builder or electrician to quickly chase a new cable into the wall and install the plug, and then to quickly cover it up with some new plaster; with the specific request that the new patch must be smooth with the old wall. Once this is all done, everything seems to be fine.

A good example of a wall finished with SatinCrete without any preparation done to equalise the suction problems.

The only problem is that you now have an area where the new plaster is different from the old one, and that difference is a variation in suction. What then happens is that the finish being applied over it will dry differently over the two surfaces, and that chase-line will shine through in the finish.

The only way around this is to equalise the suction differences by utilising a couple of products that can ‘seal-off’ the old surface and still create enough suction for the finishing product to adhere to properly and dry adequately.

Luckily these products do exist, but they are quite technical and should be done by professionals. Hint: we are professionals!

Cement crystallisation and suction (for cementitious adhesives, cementitious waterproofing products, and decorative cement finishes)

Have you ever wondered how cement actually works? You mix it with some sand, and some water, and then it goes hard. But how does it do that? You might even feel good about the fact that you know that cement needs to cure, and that it needs to be watered over a period of time so that it can get harder. But why?

Cement seems to be such a general thing. Everyone uses it. Houses get built with it. Concrete gets made from it. It is hard, strong, and nothing to worry about. But what makes it work?

The fact is, the science of cement is more intricate than most people realise, and the variables influencing it even more so.

Microscopic view of cement crystals after 28 days

In laymen’s terms, cement becomes hard through a crystallisation process which is put into action through a chemical reaction with water. This goes for anything that has cement in it. Tile adhesives, cementitious sealers, decorative and coloured cement products, screeds, plasters, etc.

The crystallisation process can be compared to hair growing, interweaving between and through each other, growing around anything that might be in contact with it, and therefore obtaining its strength from this knotted mass of hair/crystals. It can only grow while in contact with moisture – curing – and will stop growing until moisture is introduced again, but at a much reduced rate than if it were continually kept moist. This process goes on for 28 days.

Because of this crystallisation process, cement has an added benefit: it can adhere to a surface by crystallising into it; and that is where suction becomes such an interesting phenomena: If the surface is porus enough to allow for the penetration of the cement crystals, moist enough, and strong enough not to get broken off by the tension created from the hardening cement, you get a situation where the cement can form an extremely strong bond between itself and the structure. If, however, there is nothing for the cement to crystallise into, other methods of ‘sticking’ it onto the surface need to be used. These methods do exist; and works, but again it needs a specialist who understands these methods of preparation. Hint again: We are such specialists!

Shrinkage cracks, dehydration and capillary action

It is important to note that cement in and off itself is not extremely strong. It needs aggregates like sand or stone or silica or crusher to grow its crystals around and effectively ‘knotting’ the aggregate into the mesh of ‘hair’ to really come to its full potential strength.

A rule of thumb here would be that the thickness of the application must be about five to eight times the thickness of the average biggest piece of aggregate in the mixture. As such, concrete with a maximum aggregate size of 19mm should be used for a slab of between 100mm to 150mm. An aggregate of 13mm can be used for a concrete slab of between 75mm and 100mm, and an aggregate of 4mm can be used for a screed of about 25mm to 40mm.

This is a good example of shrinkage cracks that will cause capillary action to take place

This is where the problem comes in: the normal aggregate size of plaster sand is about 0.2mm to 0.5mm, and as such your plaster should actually be quite thin (it would not really be possible to plaster and nicely float a wall with an aggregate of 1mm to 1.6mm) but generally, plasterers needs to cover imperfections in the walls, and therefore plaster will commonly be done at about 16mm to 20mm, and even thicker.

This is where the shrinkage/settlement cracks greatly comes into play: the plaster is thicker than what the aggregate actually allows for, and as such, things like weight, surface tension, and the rapid escape of moisture (dehydration), causes the plaster to break up and leave cracks because it did not have time to properly crystallise.

A good example of the causes of capillary action

There is not much that can be done about this, because it would be extremely difficult to plaster a wall with a big aggregate in the plaster.

In addition to this, movement in the structure itself also causes the plaster to crack.

So, initially, you will always get cracks in the plaster. This cracking process should settle after a month or so, but what are the implications of these cracks?

A crack creates a phenomenon called capillary action. This is where the crack ‘sucks’ moisture into it much more rapidly than the suction rate of the surface in general.

This has two effects: firstly, it – almost immediately – dries the product being applied over it out; and secondly, now this moisture slowly starts coming out again, rewetting the product, and keeping it wet for longer than the product applied to the general surface.

In the first action, where the moisture gets sucked out of the product – if it is a cementitious paint – that paint will tend to be thicker over the crack than the rest of the paint. When the applicator goes over that part again – which generally gets done about two or three times per coat – more product tend to stick to the dried out parts, and it creates a lump over the crack. If the product being applied were a usual paint, the paint itself would get sucked into the crack, and the crack would remain visible. If it is a thin plaster skim, this capillary action could cause that skim to form its own shrinkage cracks.

In the second action, where the moisture is now slowly releasing again, it keeps the product around the crack wet for longer than the rest of the product. This alters the pigmentation process of the finish, and as such, the areas around the cracks will be darker than the general wall.

Luckily again, there are ways to guard against these problems through certain methods of preparation, but you need an expert to apply this. Last hint for the day: we are those experts, and we know the products.

A Word of warning

Now that you have a general idea about how cement works, and why you get certain problems with cracks, I can explain to you a couple of things that you need to look out for on your site. These are some of the biggest reasons why people experience so many failures in the building industry.

• Plaster and screed should be used quickly and not be allowed to dry out before it gets applied.Usually you will see your plasterers mixing a huge heap of plaster sand and cement. They then start plastering, and at some point take lunch. When they get back, they wet the hardened plaster-mix-heap, mix it around with their shovels until it looks like a nice sloppy plaster-mix again, and then continue plastering. Even worse, they leave it overnight, and mixes it again the next morning.From what I have explained above, it should be quite obvious that in this way they break the crystals/hairs up, and therefore greatly weaken the structure of the cement.Remember, cement obtains an overwhelming amount of its strength during the first couple of hours of being mixed with water – depending on temperature, sun and wind. You therefore already lose a lot of your
  

  The plaster on this wall was never cured. The builder also used the wrong mixing ratio. Too little cement, in direct sunlight, with no curing. This was the case on the entire house. The only way to fix this was to remove all the plaster and redo the entire house. PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE!

  maximum strength in this way. So, rather mix smaller quantities, and use it quicker, than mixing huge quantities at once and applying it over a longer period. That will give you long term problems.

  Cement rarely reaches its maximum possible strength in any case because it does not get cured properly, the aggregate is not of good quality, etc.

• Where possible, do not apply in the sun or use shade netting to block the sun out. For instance, if you start plastering in the morning, choose the walls that are currently in the shade, and move to the walls that will be in the shade in the afternoon. Make sure that, during the afternoon, you wet the walls that were applied in the morning, and vice versa, with a fine water mist spray, and continue this for at least six days after application.

• 

  Weak Plaster allowing moisture in. Usually people think that they can put a finish over this… Don’t!

  The mixing ratio for cement is usually four aggregate to one cement. A cubic meter of aggregate (about 16 wheelbarrows) will therefore use about 8 bags of cement. One wheelbarrow = two bags of cement – not one! – so for every four wheelbarrows of aggregate, you must use two bags of cement. Check your mixers; they usually think four wheelbarrows to one bag of cement. Your ratio is then one to eight, and you will have a weak structure! Do not let this one slip. It will cost you dearly. We see it all the time.

• Tile adhesives and other rapid hardening cement products have chemicals in that assist the initial growth of crystals. The product should therefore be used within the specified time and never be mixed with a little more water to obtain the desired consistency again. It just breaks down the structure of the cement and you are left with a very weak product.Also, be careful of having the mixed product standing in the sun, and make sure that you cure the product with a fine mist spray as soon as possible. Especially if it has to be applied in the sun.

• Do not apply during cold temperatures. The cement crystallisation process effectively stops in temperatures below 8°C, and if the product freezes, it will simply break up.

• Make sure that you let all the warm water run out of the hosepipe before adding water to your cement. The water inside a hosepipe that has been standing in the sun can reach temperatures of 70°C. Adding this water to your cement would majorly accelerate the crystallisation process, leaving you with cement that has already cured before you could use it.

• The quality of your aggregate is extremely important. Plaster sand and river sand – when it is mined – usually has a high clay content. A clay particle can expand to about nine times its own size when wet, and shrink back to its original size when it dries out again. If your aggregate has a high clay content, you will get crags in your finish.

At Creative Touches we have invested a lot in mistakes and school fees. We have seen what the implications of mistakes and shortcuts can be. As such, we don’t entertain them. We believe that an investment in us is an investment in success, and we give it our best.

Your journey starts here.

Rhinolite splatters on plaster should be removed and suction should be equalised

Equalise suction with CemWash Primer for CemWash application

Creating a mechanical key in the wet BaseCoat for receiving SatinCrete

About the author: Michael Pretorius is an experienced interior designer and owner of Creative Touches interiors. For more information you can visit www.creativetouches.co.za or call him directly on 082-392-3336