"I loved what she was doing with concrete," said Almeida, who decided she wanted to try working with concrete and attended trainings at Architectural Enhancements. She experimented with different colors, products, techniques, textures, and tools - whatever she thought might bring her imaginative ideas to life. The end product may look like old wood, stone, trees, marble, granite, or something completely different.
One of her early projects was covering a metal door with a thin layer of concrete and using her skills to make it look like an old wooden door. She even added Italian-type hardware, all done in concrete. She did a similar door at a music store and was adding the finishing touches by carving into the concrete when a customer approached her, wanting to know why she was cutting into the beautiful wood. She had to convince him it was concrete, not wood.
It was about this time that she met Rick Robillard, CEO/CFO of Timber Tops, a luxury cabin rental company in Sevierville, Tenn. From the minute he saw her work, he was taken by the high quality and unconventional style.
"I was immediately attracted to her out-ofthe-box thinking and her creativity," he said. "She was doing things like taking a Wal-Mart bag and painting with it. It was amazing."
Since then, Almeida has done many projects for Timber Tops - at their office building, their rental cabins, and the personal residences of people connected with the company. She's created concrete walkways stained with swirling colors reminiscent of the Smoky Mountains in autumn, covered posts to make them look like wooden timbers, and made old countertops look like boldly colored granite.
Currently, Almeida is working on a kitchen counter project in the Timber Tops office building that includes a backsplash formed to look like one of the area's most famous mountains.
"I told her we should mix it up and do something creative there," Robillard said. "When she asked me what I was thinking, I said `Well, we're in the mountains, why don't we do that?'So I sent her a photo of my favorite Jim Gray painting of Mt. LeConte and she took it from there."
The result is a creamy gold countertop with speckles of brown and gray, and a backsplash that looks like a mountain vista streaked by morning sunrays.
At a private residence in East Tennessee, Almeida created a rainforest scene in the bathroom and steam shower using concrete and Venetian plaster. The bathroom was designed by Maria Bustamante from Ecuador, who worked with her on the project.
"It looks like a tree is growing right through the shower," said Robillard, "and the walls look like you are in a rainforest. It's a soothing and calm (space)."
Above, Left: Detail of the faux timber concrete posts running the length of the Timber Tops veranda. Right: Almeida's work in the Timber Tops Realty lobby includes a seamless, 3-sided concrete counter in warm golden tones, and a large faux timber concrete mantlepiece.
Below, Insets: Seamless AurastoneTM counters and matching Mount LeConte backsplash graces an office kitchen. The surface contains embedded flecks of gold leaf in the matrix.
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