Stained Concrete

There are 2 HUGE projects that we decided to tackle… at the SAME TIME. Really not too sure what we were thinking, but all I know is that I am so happy it’s over. The first project we started was tearing up the floors and staining the concrete. The second project we started was tearing out a wall/entry way into the kitchen (I am still wondering how we survived it all).

We decided to do stained concrete when I found the staining kit online (EnduraCoat) for 50% off because it was a Memorial Day Weekend special. We paid $199 for it. We actually bought the stain BEFORE we officially bought the house… we just knew that the houses in our price range were all in severe need of updating and we didn’t have the $$ to redo all the flooring. Little bit of a gamble that paid off! 

** DISCLAIMER - prepping the floor was very labor intensive, BUT the finished product was 100% worth it... read on :) **

The first room we tried was the front dining room (that we are using as an office). The floor was a badly stained cream carpet.  The second area we stained was in the kitchen, which was covered in warped engineered wood planks. Now, I am not sure how to tell you to remove the flooring because Ben just took a wedge and hammer and started peeling back all the edges and ripping out the rest. It was a whirlwind of a demolition… but I will tell you that carpet was easy to pull up – it was just really heavy to carry out. In the kitchen, the engineered planks just snapped together, so those were really easy to disassemble as well… but what was found under the planks was a nightmare.

I think Ben lost sleep over it for days. The original linoleum flooring (think deteriorated plastic stickers) were found underneath all the wood planks. We tried every liquid solution in Home Depot, Lowes, and online that was supposed to loosen the adhesive stickers from the concrete – nothing worked. Finally Ben went and bought the sharpest scraping tool he could find and scraped for hours and hoursssss.

The sealing part of this deal is what really sucks because your whole house will smell like a nail shop on steroids. Maybe plan a night away… or sleep in face masks under the covers like we did. I seriously think everyone in the house was high that night… not that any of us would know what that feels like…! Actually, we slept with the doors and windows open, no burglar in their right mind would enter our house – they would pass out before they got out with the goods :)

We LOVE the worn look of the floors. They look great with our white molding and white kitchen cabinets. We can also do anything to these floors (likeeeee DIY projects!) and they won’t get hurt. So wonderful!

How We Did It!