Hubby and I thought that having stained concrete floors in the garage would look really cool! It might hide some of the imperfections in the floor, cover some of the stains, etc.
So, we got the cleaner/etcher and I spent a Saturday cleaning one bay of the garage. I even used it as one of my photo of the day pics. I was all gungho to see how this was going to work!
Floor is cleaned and I am ready to start! I poured the stain into an old pump sprayer, and just went for it.... Of course, I was sooo frustrated, I forgot to take pics. Ugh!
It pretty much just poured out of the sprayer and made a huge mess! The first arrow on the left is where I started, the fridge will sit there. I panicked and just got a paint brush and brushed the whole area. Then I tried "going in a circular motion" like the instructions said. That's where I got all of the curly Q's. Nice, right??
It pretty much just poured out of the sprayer and made a huge mess! The first arrow on the left is where I started, the fridge will sit there. I panicked and just got a paint brush and brushed the whole area. Then I tried "going in a circular motion" like the instructions said. That's where I got all of the curly Q's. Nice, right??
So, jumped in the van and went to town for a new sprayer. That's probably what my problem is. It's not spraying it fine enough. So, I tried the new sprayer. Well, that seemed a little better.... I finished spraying the rest of the garage bay. I even went back over it with a second coat. Not really the look we were going for....
When hubby came home, I showed him the floor. He could tell I was not a happy camper.... So, we thought why don't we try adding a second color, maybe that will give it more of the mottled look we wanted. Hmmm, it was definitely worth a try!
Hmmm... We did a dark brown color over it.... See the nice overlap marks?
All I can see is U. G. L. Y. Really, really ugly!! The mustardy brown poopy color was NOT working! It just looks bad! So, what did we do?
We took back the dark brown stain, and bought 1-part epoxy garage floor paint, in a plain 'ole concrete gray color.
OMG! This looks soooo much better! Immediately, I started to calm down. I can definitely live with this! It just looks so clean!
You can see our dirty foot prints, it's all just dust from sanding and sawing. The floor was completely dry. And... you can see that I kinda need to finish.
The plan is to run a piece of painters tape down the left side and finish it off with a nice neat line. We read all kinds of bad reviews on painting garage floors. A lot of them complained about hot tire pick up, but we shall see. Pretty sure hubby plans on putting a rug down where the car will be parked.
Who knows how it will hold up, but I could NOT look at that mustard/brown poopy colored floor any longer! This is soooo much better!! We still aren't sure if we are going to finish the rest of the garage. The plan is to see how it holds up. If using a rug for the car works, we'll probably paint the rest.
So, there you have it! I wouldn't recommend DIY staining your concrete floors.... If you want it really bad hire a pro. I guess we didn't want it bad enough.... nah, we're just too cheap! :)
Seriously... it's just a garage...
Blessings,
We took back the dark brown stain, and bought 1-part epoxy garage floor paint, in a plain 'ole concrete gray color.
OMG! This looks soooo much better! Immediately, I started to calm down. I can definitely live with this! It just looks so clean!
You can see our dirty foot prints, it's all just dust from sanding and sawing. The floor was completely dry. And... you can see that I kinda need to finish.
The plan is to run a piece of painters tape down the left side and finish it off with a nice neat line. We read all kinds of bad reviews on painting garage floors. A lot of them complained about hot tire pick up, but we shall see. Pretty sure hubby plans on putting a rug down where the car will be parked.
Who knows how it will hold up, but I could NOT look at that mustard/brown poopy colored floor any longer! This is soooo much better!! We still aren't sure if we are going to finish the rest of the garage. The plan is to see how it holds up. If using a rug for the car works, we'll probably paint the rest.
So, there you have it! I wouldn't recommend DIY staining your concrete floors.... If you want it really bad hire a pro. I guess we didn't want it bad enough.... nah, we're just too cheap! :)
Seriously... it's just a garage...
Blessings,
You have a good attitude...it's just a garage! It IS so frustrating when a plan does NOT work out. I'm with you...the gray looks clean and neat. Are there rugs made for cars/garages or are y'all just going to put one there? Thanks for the heads up on the stain...it might help one of us not have to go through the experience that you had.
ReplyDeleteHi Gayle! You are so right! And I'm sure there are special rugs/mats for your car, but we are just going to use a plain cheap area rug. Hopefully, that will help! Thanks for your encouragement, it means a lot!!
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