Bold, intentional responses - concrete floor theory part 4

So you are building a house with concrete flooring, and to no one's surprise a mistake has been made.  Maybe the plumber put a pipe in a hallway instead of the bathroom (photos of that next week), or an electrical conduit gets misplaced.  That is a straight up construction error that needs a bold response.   (See last week's episode for when bold responses are not called for)

Last week, I made it sound like we do this when the customer hasn't really embraced the basics of concrete flooring.  I may have even said that "If their Walmart conditioning is strong and they are freaked out - we then need to make the objectionable part the best part of the floor."  That infers that bold responses are not needed with cool people.  Not true.

The customer who commissioned us for this floor was extremely cool.

The electrician and the contractor who poured this slab foundation (our team just did the scoring, polishing and staining here) are cool too.  But being human, they make mistakes, and the electrical conduit that was to be centered under the kitchen island ended up about 2' off the mark.  

Luckily the owner had an interesting piece of limestone with a small fish fossil that seemed to fit the kitchen really well.  So, we cut out a rectangle to accommodate it within 1/16" and mortared it in with anchoring cement.  We overfill the cement and consolidate the material well by handling the trowel or putty knife with a very shaky hand.  After at least a few hours, hone it down with a 100 grit resin bond pad on a handheld polisher and then rough up the fossil with a needle scaler.  

It's been a couple of years since this was put in, and I'm told that the fossil has intrigued and impressed dozens of  house guests so far.  Since the floor has our unique 505 finish, it actually looks better now than it did in 2010 even with no maintenance yet.