Coatings · Colour selection
The flake colour library.
Choose one of our favourite colours below, or choose a custom colour of your own. Every tile here is a photograph of a real chip blend, taken from a board we can put in your hands.
The library
Eighteen blends,
shot from the real boards.
These are photographs of our own physical sample boards, not a manufacturer's rendering, so what you see is the actual chip mix. Use the tone filters to narrow the field, then open a tile to look at the blend up close.
Never sign off a floor colour from a screen. Every monitor renders grey differently, and gloss makes the difference worse. Ask to see the physical board for the exact blend, set it down on the floor in the room it's going into, and look at it twice: once in daylight, once under the lights you use at night. how to arrange a sample viewing
Build-up
A flake floor is
five layers, not one.
Colour is the visible end of a system we decide long before the chip comes out of the bag. This is how a broadcast flake floor goes down.
Profile and prime
Grinding or shot blasting opens the concrete so resin can key into it. Primer soaks into that profiled surface. Everything above depends on this layer, and no amount of colour rescues a floor someone coated over a sealed or dirty slab.
Pigmented base coat
A coloured resin coat goes down wet. It carries the background tone that shows through the gaps in the chip, so the base colour is part of the blend even when you barely see it.
Broadcast to refusal
We throw chip into the wet base until the surface won't take any more. That's what "refusal" means, and it's the difference between an even floor and one with shadows and thin patches where the base reads through.
Scrape and vacuum
Once the base has cured, we scrape the loose chip back, knock standing edges flat and vacuum the floor. But skip that step and the topcoat traps grit and sharp chip edges you can feel through your socks.
Clear topcoat
Clear resin fills between the chips and becomes the actual wear surface. Sheen, chemical resistance and slip texture are all set here. The chip you chose never touches a tyre.
Chip size
Size changes the floor
more than colour does.
Five of the eighteen blends also come in a 1/8 inch chip: Domino, Canyon, Gravel, Solar Flare and Saddle Tan. Same pigments, very different floor.
A full-size chip reads as bolder and more varied. You see individual flakes from standing height, and the contrast between light and dark chips in the blend stays visible. A 1/8 inch chip averages out at the same distance into something finer and more uniform, closer to a speckled solid colour than to a pattern. Neither size is tougher than the other, because the clear topcoat over the chip is what takes the wear.
Size also changes what a repair looks like years down the line. A full-size blend has enough visual noise in it that a patched section blends in once the topcoat goes over. A 1/8 inch floor reads closer to a solid colour, so any join shows the way a paint touch-up shows on a wall. If the room is one where you expect to cut in a drain or move a machine, the bigger chip is the more forgiving bet.
| Criterion | Full-size chip | 1/8 inch chip |
|---|---|---|
| Pattern from standing height | Individual flakes are clearly readable | Blends into a fine, even speckle |
| Colour contrast | Tones in the blend stay distinct | Tones average into one perceived colour |
| Texture under the topcoat | More relief, more tooth | Flatter, closer to a smooth coating |
| Hiding dust and marks | Very forgiving between cleans | Forgiving, but nearer a solid colour |
| Suits | Garages, gyms, workshops | Interiors and quieter, calmer rooms |
Why flake, not plain colour
Flake earns its keep.
A solid-colour coating shows everything. Dust, footprints, salt residue dragged in on tyres over a Colorado winter and the dark scuff a hot tyre leaves when a car sits in the same spot all summer. A broken chip pattern gives the eye too much to look at for any of that to stand out, which is why a flake floor still looks presentable a fortnight after it was last mopped.
Traction is the other half. Chip relief under the clear coat gives a foot something to catch compared with flat gloss, and where a floor gets genuinely wet we can load the topcoat with an aggregate to push slip resistance further.
- Broken pattern disguises dust, grit and tyre marks between cleans
- Chip relief adds grip compared with a smooth gloss coating
- Slip texture can be increased with aggregate in the final clear coat
- The topcoat is the wear surface, so the floor mops clean instead of needing a scrub
Choosing
Three questions
settle most of it.
People agonise over the shortlist and then pick in ten seconds once the board is on the floor. Work through these before you look at the grid again.
What does the light in that room do?
Lighting moves perceived colour hard. Cool shop fittings pull a grey blend blue; warm domestic LEDs pull the same blend brown; low winter sun through an open garage door does something else again. Look at the sample in the actual room, at the hour you actually use it.
What does the floor have to hide?
A garage that takes road salt and mud all winter wants a mid-tone blend with real contrast in it. A finished basement or a showroom floor has far less to conceal, so a lighter, quieter blend holds up fine and makes the room feel bigger.
What is already in the room?
Pull one tone out of the cabinets, the walls or the door trim and find the blend that carries it. Keeping the floor a shade darker than the walls grounds the space; matching them exactly usually reads as a mistake.
Questions
What people ask about colour.
Yes. The eighteen are our favourites and the ones we can show you on a board, but a custom colour of your own is an option. Tell us what you're matching to and we'll work back from there. custom blend lead time
Close, not identical. The photographs are of real boards, so the chip mix is honest, but your screen, the light in your room and the sheen of the topcoat all shift how a blend reads. Treat the grid as a shortlist and confirm against a physical sample.
No. Durability comes from the preparation, the base coat and the topcoat, not the pigment. Chip size changes texture and how forgiving the floor looks; colour itself is cosmetic.
Next step
Narrow it down to three.
Send us the blends you keep coming back to, the size of the floor and what happens on it. We'll tell you which one survives the room.