Archie’s Concrete Design

Some people are amazingly talented. This is one that is one of the best…
I have run into many corporate companies getting my head filled with all kinds of cool things that different ones can do.
I just want to give props to Sheila (Archie Archie Concrete)! I had so much ideas buzzing that I couldn’t settle on anything!
Once I was in contact with this business, I realized that I was a bit overwhelmed and frustrated for not being able to decide on a design.
In this company, Shelia (Archie Archie on facebook), personally handles your calls. She personally has a sit down with you and gets down to business with a definite down to earth, animal loving, tree loving personality. She helped yank my ideas out of my head and tweaked them adding hers and my personal touch. She just made it simple and helped takes my anxiety away.
Ok. I think I used the word personal too much? Ha! There I go again! LoL.
I still had jitters about the concrete work that was about to be done. I mean, I had only heard of this company through a great Unilocal review. And usually you never talk to the business owners. It’s usually the secretaries and such. I was fearful that this was a one-​man shop…
I had a special job that needed to be done. Time flew by. The job was done. I walked in for the unveiling and was floored. Not only was it beautiful, but it was correct!
She has a team of workers that she specially trained to help and daily assist with any of the work. It’s like she pulled rabbits out of a hat or somethin.
My concrete floors don’t look like a regular floor; it looks like art. You can tell it was «hand done» with the help of some small machinery, and it definitely looks like she put her hands all over it.
Some people are amazingly talented. This is one that is one of the best!

I was referred to Archie’s Concrete Designs by a friend, who had her carpeting pulled up, removed, and floors stained by them several years ago. I couldn’t be happier with this referral!
First of all, Archie and Pat are as honest and open as they could possibly be. Their pricing is fair, and the results are amazing! For a a small investment, I feel like I’m living in a new house. I only wish I had done this sooner.
They were there when they said they would, and did exactly what they said they would. They far exceeded my expectations.
You won’t go wrong with Archie’s Concrete Designs!

Archie’s concrete design is the top 100 in Texas not only fantastic designs and professional work but the owner and team members are so wonderful and polite. Couldn’t ask for a better company. I highly recommend Archie’s concrete design.

Archie’s Concrete Design was one of the lower-​priced bids I got but I realize now that it was «too low.» My concrete floor — while the slab was beautifully laid out and scored (I’ll compliment them on this) — may not have been properly sealed and has NEVER kept any real shine to it, despite every option I’ve tried for keeping it waxed, polished, cleaned, etc. When i asked multiple times about this, the owner just keeps sending me to the store where she gets her supplies. I also thought the stain itself would look «mottled» — however, when it came out uniform-​looking, the owner told me after the staining was done that an overlay would never have looked that way. That was the look I was going for, so I’m confident I would have remembered if she’d told me if wasn’t going to look like that. Lastly, my wooden cabinets that are 4″ from the floor weren’t adequately protected and have horrible acid (like) stains on them — and Archie’s just kind of blew me off on that, too. Overall, the disturbing thing was that after apparently underbidding the part of the job for the removal of my original flooring job (i.e., it took her a day longer than she anticipated for removing the old floor), I got the impression that she and her crew were in a hurry to finish to keep from losing too much money on my job. Unless she’s changed her business practices in the last year or two (my job was in 2011), I’d recommend you consider other contractors.

After buying a 15 year old house that has not been updated, I found myself staring down the barrel of a bunch of updates that needed to be done. So I decided to start at the bottom and work our way up. I had stained concrete at my other house, and loved its durability and the rich color I had there. So I decided to get rid of the 80’s white floor tiles in the kitchen and powder room, linoleum in the laundry room, and shag carpet in the living room and 2 closets, and give it a try again.
Sheila and her crew did a great job on my floors. We chose a rich rust color for the floor. The color is true to the sample I picked from. She gave me the option to do an overlay (which is a 3/​8″ layer of concrete to put over the existing slab) or to stain the existing concrete as it was. I chose to do the overlay in order to avoid being able to see the «ghost pattern» of where the tile had previously been laid.
The pros:
1) Love the color — it has so much more character than my old ratty carpet. It’s really warm and inviting!
2) Easy to clean (just use vinegar and water for any spots and damp mop or dust mop for dust bunnies)
3) Great consistent surface throughout my whole first floor to replace the groovy carpet and tile. (It no longer looks like the Golden Girls live here!)
4) Sooooo much better for my dogs — we have 2 hairy dogs who come and go through the dog door in the kitchen. Cleanup is a breeze now, and they don’t scratch it at all.
The cons — maybe not so much cons, but stuff I wish I would have known:
1) When it’s really cold outside, it feels colder since we pulled up carpet. (This will work in our favor in the summer, based on my experience from my prior house — it feels nice and cool in the hot months.)
2) The process is stinky — the odor from the stain and sealant was pretty strong for about a week, like living in a magic marker factory. We really aired out the house for about a week, and now the smell is not present at all when you walk in the house. If you cannot open windows to air out the house, you might want to plan to stay elsewhere, at least the first night until it’s a little less funky. We were able to escape to our upstairs and sleep with the windows open, so it was tolerable.
3) The process is also dusty. Since we did the tile tear out, the use of a jackhammer was required. This made for a LOT of dust, so I was glad that I covered everything with a plastic drop cloth and taped it off. Even with that, I forgot to do the same for my kitchen cabinets, and so all my dishes and inside the cabinets had to be washed and wiped out. (Probably needs to be done anyway every now and then anyway, but I wished I would have though to tape them off).
4) You won’t have access to that part of your house during the process, so get everything you need — what do you expect? You’re basically staining and top coating the floor. You won’t be able to walk on it until it’s dried overnight. For us, this meant no access to the kitchen for a couple of days. Had to eat at a restaurant, so maybe it wasn’t a con for me since I usually have to cook and clean the kitchen.
All in all a good experience. Sheila & Pat were both professional and courteous. They were very conscientious in their work, were competitively priced, prompt and let me know what they were doing each step of the way. Overall, the work product was great and met my expectations. No disappointments here. The color was very uniform due to the overlay (which allowed the stain to absorb evenly) and I have gotten lots of compliments on it.
My before, during and after pictures are posted here and are labeled «Angie’s floors».

Archie Concrete Design is hands down the WORST company I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience and if even one person goes elsewhere because of this review, it was worth the time to write it.
Sheila Archie came to my home and quoted me for a high-​gloss white epoxy floor. It was supposed to take 3 days and the self professed «epoxy specialist» gave no indication that this job would be anything but a piece of cake.
My boyfriend and I took our 3 dogs to the coast for an extended weekend and expected to walk in to see a brilliant, shiny, white, gorgeous floor. The floor we had been promised so easily. What we saw instead were jackhammer holes and cracks in the floor that hadn’t been filled, a patch job that looked like something a 2 year old would do, white epoxy slopped on our cabinets, patio door, and fireplace, and a white floor completely discolored by patches of concrete showing through.
Because there is only limited space here, I can’t even begin to tell you all the gruesome details that have occurred during the 2 months we’ve spent living in our bedroom with 3 dogs while the floor saga goes on and on and on. So, I’ll include some highlights, as Laura F. did:
— No call or any information that there were problems with our floor and that it would take longer. Sheila also admitted the problem was because she didn’t bother to apply an opaque primer/​basecoat.
— Inexperience with the product and application methods that resulted in an orange-​peel texture and loads of little pinhole craters on the floor.
— An angry tirade and threats when we tried to contact other contractors and they told her we were trying to get outside help. (PS. We never mentioned her name, so she was apparently talking sh*t about our project)
— Refused to sand the floor and left me to do it. I spent 4 days on my hands and knees to do a job she could have done in 30 minutes.
— Made excuses about family emergencies and being sick that led her to cancel, then no-​show, and then disappear for 2 weeks.
— I had to call the manufacturer for information on how to apply the product and what top coat to use, because Archie Concrete was clueless. Why she didn’t do this herself, I have no clue.
— Received payment in full for the original contract and then started an hour long argument demanding for money before the project was complete. This included demands for payment, accusations that we were deadbeats, whining about personal problems… etc.
— The top coat that was recommended by another concrete contractor (he emailed me and told her), as well as Devoe, was opaque and white. There was never any need for a 5^th or 6^th coat, as the top coat would have covered it. But, Sheila the epoxy expert didn’t know enough to know this.
— Though a top coat was included on our contract, I had to push her to put it on. She was going to use clear polyurethane, which would have yellowed over time. Again, she has no clue about her products.
— I went through the trouble of forcing Glidden to give a refund to Archie Concrete for 3 of the epoxy kits, though Sheila should have done this herself.
— Were presented with an invoice that was an impressive work of fiction and included items already paid for and miscounted items. All contracts were dated 2011 and none of them included the clause that is legally required by Texas law to be on contracts.
So, we corrected her invoice and paid her for the materials used. We were not obligated to pay anything beyond the original contract, but thought it would be the right thing to do. We decided to not leave her a review and to just have the floor sanded and the poly reapplied as a maintenance coat in a few years. The floor had lots of burst bubbles and debris from hair, brushes, and her cheap rollers. It’s basically gritty to walk on.
Archie Concrete has now sent a letter demanding the fictional amount of money she is desperate to be paid and threatening to put a lien on our home for over $ 3000 if we don’t pay her $ 400. So, I decided this would be a great time to post a review, notify the Attorney General, the FTC, the BBB, and update our family attorney on the case. I’ll update the review at a later date on this matter.
In short, do not hire this company. Just don’t. Staining and doing epoxy on concrete isn’t rocket science and anyone can do it if they take the time to read some websites and watch some Youtube videos. Even if you completely mess up and have to start over, you’ll still encounter less hassle and less money wasted than by hiring Archie Concrete Design.

In the animal kingdom, there is something called aposematism, in which certain dangerous creatures are brightly colored to warn others that they might be hazardous to eat or mess with. Well, if the human race had that feature, Sheila Archie would be striped in neon green and hot pink, covered in spikes, and put off an odor that would make a skunk blush. Quite simply: The worst contractor experience I’ve had.
Our first consultation was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon. She showed up Tuesday while I was at work and sent me a confused email telling me I’d missed our meeting. I reminded her we’d planned on the next day and she apologized for mixing up the days. When she showed up the next day, she was an hour late. I should have seen that as a warning sign of the epic levels of ineptitude to follow, but I wrote it off because we all have our off days.
I have a tendency to make excuses for other people’s bad behavior and give them the benefit of the doubt, but to have some shenanigans (dog ate the cell phone charger, dental appointment ran late, back pain) go down each and every time we were supposed to meet seems a bit unlikely in my opinion. Not to mention the general lack of punctuality and awful communication. Maybe I met Sheila during the worst month of her life, but I get the feeling this is par for the course.
The Highlight Reel:
–Two hours late on installation day because her dog chewed through her cell phone charger and the alarm didn’t go off.
–Did not fully coat the floor – left many bare spots, but did manage to slop it all over my baseboards and cabinets.
–When we called about the problems, she said she’d need to sand the original top coat before she applied the new top coat, but when she returned she said her back hurt and it would probably be fine to just put it down without sanding. I have confirmed with another contractor and the manufacturer of the product she used that this was very wrong and it should have been sanded since it had been more than 24 hours.
–We check out the new top coat and it’s even worse. She missed new spots and did not clean the floor before rolling the new coat. The floor is clearly dirty underneath and she sealed in strands of her hair along with a small twig.
–We call right away and don’t get a response for days despite multiple attempts to reach her. Finally, we are told she’ll come get the bare spots on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week.
–They don’t show up Tuesday and don’t return my calls. I receive an email in the evening confirming that Sheila will come after her dentist appointment the next day (Wednesday).
–Call and text several times on Wednesday to see when she’ll arrive. We get a call at 4:15 PM. from her partner Pat telling me she can’t make it because she had dental surgery and is in pain. I’m not heartless, but why schedule a job when you have surgery? Why not come the day before like you said?
–The partner does offer to come by herself but says, «I don’t really know what I’m doing and I wouldn’t want to mess it up more.» Yikes. No thanks.
–After that call, we received no replies to any call, email or text.
Of course, everyone will say they acted like an angel and didn’t lose their temper when presenting their side of the story, but I truly am the kind of person who will stuff my frustration so deep inside that I can’t breathe in order to maintain civility. I always feel like it doesn’t do any good to get visibly mad because who wants to do a good job for you after you yell at them? So, I can honestly say that I made every effort to be accommodating and understanding, but I hit my limit after two missed appointments to fix a botched job and no attempt to reschedule. I told them by email that I was shocked by their lack of professionalism and warned that I would have no choice by to notify the BBB and the online community of their bad work. I received no reply.
TL;DR: Constantly late, missed appointments, did a bad job, got floor epoxy on walls, sealed in dirt and debris, didn’t fix it, ignored calls.

I would give Archie’s Concrete 10 stars if that was available. From the moment I called them to the day everything was complete Archies Concrete Design is as good as it gets. They were helpful, answered my many, many, many questions over the course of the project and the end result was more then I could have hoped for. Sheila and company are professional, reliable, hardworking and all around fantastic. Our floors look amazing and it was a pleasure working with everyone at Archies Concrete. HIGHLY RECOMENDED!!!

Well after many years of deliberation we finally decided to rip up the carpet and have our floors completed. You see we have a Rottie and a Dobie who love to play outside however steam cleaning the carpets was getting old and time consuming.
At our vets office I always admired their stained concrete floors. I finally asked Dr. Salmon who did them and he stated Sheila Archie. So I gave her a call.
Sheila was great and came out to quote us a price. We had previously gotten quotes and she was lower overall and she just clicked in personality. Thus we hired her. Our objective was a dark brown stain with score lines to imitate tiles. We opted not to have an overlay completed as we loved the imperfections of the concrete. We didn’t want a perfectly smooth or consistent color. We wanted more of a rustic look with frog skeltons, moths and leaf prints in our original concrete to bring charm to our house.
We were guided through the process in which how the colors were applied and the overlay. We originally wanted a more expensive overlay however Sheila suggested a cheaper alternative which I was impressed that she’d leave money on the table instead of trying to upsell.
We opted to completed seal our house in plastic wrap as to cut down on the concrete dust. Sheila was amazed at the length that we went through but we wanted to make sure that it was properly sealed.
After pulling up the carpet in our house she and her crew scrubbed the floor with a scrubbing machine and in hard to reach areas, wire brushes on their hands and knees. It was a painstaking process but it looked great. Then they chalked up the area, using my pattern layout I created in Illustrator, to indicate the tile size and scored areas. After this was completed they washed the floors again and let them dry. After she applied the black acid stain to get to the color we desired. Because we opted not have have an overlay we had color variation on our slab due to the moisture previously on the slab when the hosue was built. We finally got the color that we wanted and proceeded to put down the acrylic top to the it and it was gorgeous.
Now our home’s slab was pourous in some areas that required more coats than normal and cost us a bit extra however it was well worth it. I can’t blame Sheila for the upcost of the sealant because our slab was a bit weird. However it came out beautiful and I’ve attached photos.
I recommend Sheila to all of my friends and love it. Matter of fact I recommended her to a friend even before I actually completed my own house. Great job Sheila!

This company is FANTASTIC!!! Can not recommend them enough. They are extremely professional, reliable, honest, and they do GREAT work!!! They scored and stained our concrete and it looks like we have tile in the entire downstairs of our home. They know what they’re doing and they don’t take shortcuts. They started the job on Monday and were done in 3 days– and that was with me changing my mind about going from a solid stain to a scored look. If you are looking to have your floors stained, CALL THEM!!! You will not be sorry.

Archie’s Concrete Design just got through staining and scoring my backyard’s concrete patio. It looks awesome. Sheila did an excellent job capturing what I wanted and exceeding expectations. I’m very happy, it’s really dressed up our backyard! I work in Property Mgmt and see a lot of floors, but Archie’s Concrete Design far surpasses the rest in quality, price, and customer service.

We can’t say enough good things are Archie’s Concrete Design. Four years ago this team stained and sealed our 1500 sq ft home. Due to chemical allergies, they had to use a water base stain and a sealant and wax that did not have odor. We couldn’t be more pleased. We have asked them back to do some touch up (where our grandkids have dragged metal objects around). We clean it with vinegar and water twice a month and it looks like new.
Kudo for a job well done — and just keeps on giving!