Has anyone had experience with stained concrete floors? Did you do it yourself or hire it out? Pros/cons? Where did you get the materials from? Is there a showroom you know of where we can see samples in person?
**I changed the word "painted" to "stained" as it was pointed out, I made a mistake!
Thanks!
T.
We have stained concrete floors and they are awesome - incredibly easy to clean and beautiful! We used someone and it still ended up being cheaper than any other floor option.
They were doing a home show and we went there and saw their floor samples - we made our choice and it took them about 2-3 days to do it start to finish.
Here is their website - http://www.jaggerssc.com/
Good luck and enjoy.
LP
I wanted to do stained concrete in our house that we rent out, but someone told me that concrete floors are not allowable for re-sale. Something about FHA won't approve an exposed concrete floor. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's a rental and I didn't want to hassle later when we go to sell it. So, we did tile.
I think what you really want is stained concrete floors. Paint would be a huge maintenance problem whereas stain actually penetrates the top 1/8" of the concrete. I did do mine myself but I work in the industry. The stain is actually an acid and it would be a better idea if you had someone do it for you.
Their are 2 ways to go if you stain the concrete one method involves a sealer going on top. The sealer can get scratched a need to be replaced every couple of years of you can go with polished concrete this is extrememly low maintenance but the installation costs more.
Con's of concrete floors are having new babies who are learning to walk and crawl.
Hi T.! I don't have concrete floors, but I almost bought a house that did. I kept going over to see the house because I was very unsure about it. After numberous trips I decided the house was not right for us and a big reason was the floors. At the time my daughter was 2 and my son was about 3 months old. I couldn't see him crawling and learing to walk on that floor. I didn't want to see how hard either of their heads would hit on that floor. (They are very slippery!) Also, the more I went in the house, I could see all the dust on the floor. The floor would have to be swept or dusted every day. These floors were dark brown/black swirl to look like marble. Plus, I used to work at a place that only had concrete floors. It has wrecked havock on my legs. After talking to a dr about the veins in my legs, I found out it was from standing on the concrete floor for so long. Its not good for your legs or feet.
The floors are suppose to be very inexpensive and they are beautiful. I just wanted to give you a few extra cons that others have not pointed out. I hope this helps!
C.
OK this may sound totally redneck, but I have done it & it is pretty awesome.
Take a steel wool scouring pad & put it in a bucket of vinegar for about 24-48 hours. The steel wool will dissolve in the vinegar. Then you take a mop (you will have to throw this mop away when you are finished) and mop this solution onto your prepared concrete floors. You can mop on as much or as little as you want, but the finished product is like a terra cotta looking finish.
You will have to mix multiple steel wool pads with multiple gallons of vinegar dependant on how big of an area you wish to stain.
You can go over it once, let it dry & reapply as many times as you wish. The more you put on the darker it will be.
It will not be an even finish as you can imagine sort of rustic... well a rust look (you are essentially rusting the steel wool with the vinegar - which creates the rust colored stain).
You will have to apply a clear sealer & may have to do that every few years.
The outcome is really very neat & all for very inexpensive.
Let me know if you have any questions... this may not be the look you are going for, but I thought that I would post it as a do-it-yourself alternative.
