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I found a picture of a kitchen with stained concrete floors and love the look. (sorry, having trouble copying the pic to the boards - working on that).

Do any of you have this flooring option inside? How do you like it and what made you choose it?

We do have other homes in our neighborhood (one very newly remodeled) that have the concrete, so going with it as an option would not be too modern/trendy or out of character.

Thanks!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: junk collector,

This type of concrete floor is not the actual subfloor that the slab construction is built on. This is an additional layer on top of the slab concrete and then stained, decorated and sealed.

Slab concrete absorbs and emits humidity and thus will do so inside the home.

Thanks Mary Ruth! I did not know about the humidity issues.

We're on slab and in the southwest, so I would anticipate few issues with this as an option. We have almost zero humidity in the house as we upgraded our swamp cooler to air last year.

Check with companies in your area for options in coating your floors. In Florida Terrazzo has been used for years and holds up well, now old floors can be repaired, polished and sealed to look like new. (pic attached) shows a sample Terrazzo floor in Florida that was restored. Company says it costs less than installing carpet for refinishing the original Terrazzo.

There are lots of styles now of refinishing cement floors. My son's house has original Terrazzo floor (they used to do it when house was built). And the whole floor is done so that there are no seems into each room. I love the continuous floor look in the house. He got a quote for doing all tile (hired out) and it would have been almost 4 grand, the repolishing and sealing of his floor was $850! His looks as good as this photo (his is a darker tan)

As you can see in the photo that the new finish is shiny you can choose less sheen and it is non-skid.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Ruth,

I just thought of something else I didn't note, if you have carpet or tile now, then the new coating on cement might not have much thickness, so check with the room it will take up or all your door trim and doors will sit high off the floor and will need tall shoemold to cover (so much easier than redoing it all!)

Great timing! We just did this in our office.

Our house is on a slab foundation, we took the carpet up and stained the slab. It took a LOT of preparation. Brutal. We were on our hands and knees for days. It's quite a job, lots of steps involved. Looks easy in pictures, but it's not. The end result is worth it, to us. In my area, it's not a trend at all, it's been done for decades.

Reasons we did it: Cost (under $200 for everything floor-related), and we love the look.

We used Kemiko acid concrete stain in "Vintage Umber". We also used Kemiko cleaner, sealer, and wax.

7 pics coming up!

#1: Pulling up beautiful stained carpet (gag):

#2: Cleaned and prepped floor (took days to get to this point). Again, this is the slab itself, we didn't do any kind of coating over it. If your floor is severely damaged, it would be best to do a concrete overlay.

Walls are Laura Ashley Olive 6.


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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mîz M,

#3 (wide-angle pics taken with GoPro camera)....after first coat of stain. It freaked us out a bit, the color doesn't show up right away--

#4: We did 2 coats of stain itself:

#5: Before sealer.

We did several coats of sealer. The sealer is what brings the color out. It looks pretty bad before you seal--

#6: After sealer

Today: (we did many coats of wax, 4-5, I think) Wax helps with keeping the sealer in good shape.

Office decor not finished, obviously. We're scouring Craiglist for a nice desk, and still have pics to put up.

We're super happy with the results. If you have any questions about the process, just let me know.

One more, love how it looks from main rooms (that's me, blurred out in the mirror) :-D:

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Beautiful, how did this process affect where your door trim & baseboard is in the room?

I love how your room came out, very rich.

WOW - you did a great job on that! We are trying to determine how much of a remodel we can do ourselves vs paying the contractor and if the floors are in good shape, it is much like painting (with extra steps).

Thanks! I can't wait to show DH.

Thank you, Mary Ruth and Junk Collector!

For the baseboard: we had to add a baseshoe to it, it was too high off the floor without the carpet. I'll add a pic of it, G used a basic 3 1/2 base molding, and cut it down to size. The casing around the doors were already very low, we didn't have to add to it.

Where the tile from the other rooms meets this new floor, we're still deciding on that. Possibly some sort of trim piece, or we'll just stain where the side of the tile shows, and it will just blend in (having a very subtle step down into the room).


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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mîz M,

GREAT job Jill! I love the up close look! So interesting!

Thanks, Mary Ruth! We plan to sell in the near future, what's great about this floor style is how easy it is to change, if not desired. It's the slab, so it can just be tiled over, wood floors, or carpet.

JIll - your hard work was well worth it!!! Beautiful!

Thank you, Sunny Daze!

MizM- you all did a great job!

Becky42 also has them. I don't know how often she comes here these days. There might be some pics on the old Pictures of Our Homes thread. Hers are that brown color and she is very happy with them too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Becky56,

We had this done in our home when it was built in 2003 and we did it ourselves in 2007 in the addition.

Like Miz M, we used Kemiko Acid Stain but in "Malay Tan". We didn't have to strip or clean anything because the slab was new. We just had to wait a period for the slab to cure a bit before staining. The only prep work was a mopping with TSP.

The slab must be 100% clean and free of any glues, grease, paint, etc for the acid to work. After staining we sealed it.

When the slab was poured there was a thick double layer vapor barrier layed down first so no moisture problems here. It does stay nice and cool in the hot Florida summers.
You don't really need an overlay if the slab is new, clean and level.
I love terrazzo which is concrete with marble chips mixed in that has been polished and sealed. My MIL has that throughout her 50 year old home. It very expensive to have it done these days, as Mary Ruth mentioned.

These are the photos of when we stained our addition.



closeup

one more

BTW I should have said the only prepping BEFORE was mopping with TSP, AFTER staining it is a lot of mopping to get the leftover chemical cleaned off before sealing.

Wow! That is pretty!

IF I were younger I would consider this for our slab foundation home. But we are not up for all that work. SURE IS beautiful!

zonelady,
Your floor is incredible, and what a great way to do a large floor like yours!

Thanks ladies! Yep polished concrete floors have been around for 100 years now. I don't think their going anywhere soon. When we did this section ourselves I called a contractor in Tampa for a quote to have someone else do it. He said for 1400 sq.ft. it would be $4.50 per sq.ft. We did the whole job for about $750.00 and upkeep is easy now that we got a floor machine. We wax it about once a year.

What beautiful floors every has. I would love to do that but don't know if I want to be on my knees that long.

Terrazzo hasn't really been used in FL since the 1960's because it is so expensive now. I have a few friends that redid theirs. My brother put tile over his. Don't know that he was thinking.

I love your floors Miz M.

I also just wanted to say hi and that I've missed you. I think I was able to send you a pm but am not to sure that I did.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: *BooBoo*,

We have stained concrete in our kitchen and bathrooms! We love it! A local contractor did the work for us and we couldn't be happier!

www.planoconcreteflooring.com

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LOVINLIFE2013,

Why hire a contractor when it's a totally DIY job and 10 times cheaper to do yourself.

I never got on my knees when doing this job, couldn't if I wanted to, couldn't take the pain.

Every floor have a different look and its looks awesome.Everybody have done a great job.I wish i can also work like that renovate the floor of my house but now i will have to hire the contractor and as you told it will be expensive but no other way i do not have experience. I will see how they works then only will do my self all other rooms of my house.