The Renovations Continue
Again I have been absent from you readers, but not without good reason. Our master bedroom has been the final frontier for a very long time. It suffered in silence with matted down builder beige, original carpet. Threaded through with dog hair and dust, we long ago gave up on it. Our other carpet we have replaced with hard wood or tile. We have wanted to get rid of it for so long but we have tightened our purse strings of late and so more hard wood is out of the question.
In the last few years more and more restaurants and retail outlets have been making use of stained concrete floors. They are attractive, durable and practical. We really like the look but never thought it was something we could do ourselves. Then someone told us about DC Surfaces in downtown Jacksonville. We called, then took a trip out to their showroom. Their salesperson, and a do it yourself customer with pictures of his last project on his phone, convinced us that we could do it. We picked up the materials, which cost less than $300 and headed home.
Honestly it wasn't totally goof proof. We mixed the overlay too thick, so we ran out Friday night and had to buy more. That slowed us down by a day which meant we couldn't seal it until tonight. The steps are basically, two layers of concrete overlay, two to four layers of spray on acid stain, neutralizer spray/scrub/vacuum then seal. All this is over about a three day period.
Applying the Overlay
After the Neutralizer
Applying Sealer
The sealant brings out the color and richness
Ta da! The sealer has to cure for a few days before we can move furniture back in but we are essentially done. UberGeek and I love do it yourself projects and this was probably one of our favorites. Not a lot of money, big impact and relatively little time compared to putting in hard wood, which was AWFUL. I anticipate it will be a great surface for dogs and cats, although we will probably have to put down a throw rug or two for our tootsies in the winter.
