I've never seen anything like this before, and I think it's beautiful. The guys who did it have posted an album of the process at imgur, and discuss the technique in a Reddit thread. Some excerpts:
- If properly cared for, this floor will last forever. It requires a mop on wax every 6 months in the high traffic areas.
- Total cost for materials only was right around $500. Labor was free!
- To get the lines, we laid down 1/2" masking tape and sprayed the stain over. When the tape was removed, the natural concrete color was left.
- I can't remember the name or brand of sealer and acid stain we used, but will try and dig it up.
- This floor is just like any other tile or ceramic floor. It is hard, but stays cool in the summer. Very easy to clean. When we do mop, it's just with a mild soap and water solution.
- This is an acid stain. They have many other types of concrete dyes, stains, and pigments available in all sorts of colors. Acid stain will actually react with the concrete and etch itself in. Once everything was stained, we applied the urethane sealer followed by a coat of wax.
- We only used one color of stain, brown. The dark areas are full strength and the light area are diluted with water 1:1.
- For anyone wanting to do this, I suggest doing countless hours of
research. A simple search on google for 'acid stain concrete' will get
you all the information you will ever need. Not all concrete can just be
stained. If the concrete is in rough shape the results will not be
appealing. Some concrete will even require an overcoat of a thin layer
of concrete in in bad shape...
Remember prepping is EVERYTHING. If using existing concrete. Clean, scrub, mop, vacuum, dry- do this 4 times. And when you think it's clean enough, do it one more time. Fix and repair any holes or defects you do not want to show up also. If prepped correctly, staining is easy and takes no time at all. Just google 'acid stain concrete' or words of the sort and there are 100's of forums and websites to help you pick the best materials and tutorials on how to go about this project.
gorgeous! What a great idea ~
ReplyDeleteThat floor is gorgeous. Thanks. I'm going to show it to my husband.
ReplyDeleteI have a question, unrelated to the above blog post. Actually, I was wondering if you or any of your readers could identify a strange creature that a friend who lives in Wisconsin saw outside her apartment window and is very perplexed by. She posted a picture of it on another site and no one so far has seen anything like it. I can't find a way to contact you with a picture of this strange thing so I'm using your comment option, sorry if this is a "no-no". Here is her description: "It appeared to be made up of many worm-like creatures but it moved as one unit. It is nightmare inducing. I would love to identify it (or erase it from my memory!!!!!) but have had no luck. Has anyone ever seen a creature as horrendous as this and care to shed some light? "
I posted a picture of the creature on my blog:
http://leocadia-signsandwonders.blogspot.com/2012/06/help-identify-this-creature-if-you-can.html
It looks like some sort of caterpillar train.
DeleteThank you very much Skipweasel. I googled caterpillar train and found something called processionary caterpillars (same thing different words) which looked very much like that picture. However, in the meantime, my friend found out it was a mass of darkwinged fungus gnat maggots - probably in search of food. The maggots stick together and slither along in a ribbon, sometimes as much as an inch wide and a yard long - resembling a silvery snake.
DeleteSorry for going off topic here. But happy to have learned something in the process.
Hahaha! "takes no time... staining is easy"...
ReplyDeleteYeah, its the prep that is labor intensive.
I did tile for a few years when I was younger. This is nice work, but don't kid yourself, not just anyone can do it!
The dictionary has a picture of those brothers next to the entry for 'meticulous'. Beautifully done.
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ReplyDeleteNobody likes a spammer.
Delete^ I think not.
ReplyDeleteall I can think of is how cold it would feel
ReplyDeleteYep - you'd have to be in a climate that is warm all year round to want to have this. Concrete conducts heat about 5 times as well as wood, and wooden floors usually have an air gap or rubber sheeting below them as further insulation.
DeleteI lived in a place with a concrete floor in the kitchen, and basically you had to wear slippers or shoes in there as otherwise your feet would go numb in about 10 minutes.
Wax? To make it super slippery? Yikes!
ReplyDeleteWe had a new concrete driveway put in last year with acid staining - it looks great. This is one of many sites selling the stain
ReplyDeletehttp://www.directcolors.com/concreteacidstain/
Our contractor said it was an iterative process (you put some on, you see how it looks, you put more on and so on). You don't get a uniform finish, so it looks natural. Someone around the corner from us stained their driveway green to match the color of their house and got fantastic curb appeal.
It is indeed gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteDown here on the gulf coast of Mississippi stained concrete floors are very common. So much cooler in the summer than carpet and we have lots of sand here so it is much easier to clean.
ReplyDeleteBut how did you get that pretty design in the foyer?
ReplyDeleteDo you have any pics of the taping process to make the stripes? Thank You
ReplyDeleteWe have concrete floors in our family room, bathroom, laundry room, and kitchen. We're going to stain them when the weather gets warmer. We live in MN and have radiant floor heating. So warm and cozy:)
ReplyDeletehow much did radiant floor heating cost
DeleteWhat I want to know, is we have tile and carpet but want different flooring and I have alway LOVED concrete flooring. Can you do this if you already had stuff on the floors, carpet and tile??
ReplyDeleteBeautiful concrete flooring thumbs up!
ReplyDeleteVery nice Floor - we want to do the same thing. So where did you get the stencil? Do you have an artwork file or where did you buy it. Any help would be appreciated. We aren't sure where to look. Was it an adhesive stencil? Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
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