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I watched a show this morning, and the home owners removed the carpet in the living room and stained the concrete..It was gorgeous, and Iam debating on doing this to my downstairs. Is this an easy project and can it be done is a weekend?

you will need to make sure you are not getting moisture through the floor or it will be blotchy .Best way is to tape a piece of aluminum foil to the floor if it is wet under that means you are getting moisture from the slab and if the moisture is on top means the moisture is in the room and you may need a dehumidifier .Slabs are generally cold also .You can lay in floor heat mat and have self leveling cement put over it .But it needs the bonding glue put down before the self leveler

How hard it is depends upon what is on the floor now. If it is carpet you may have paint and drywall compound under it that has to be sanded off first.

You should google staining concrete and see what they show in detail.

or worse the carpet padding may be glued down yuck and hard to remove

It is not uncommon to have cracks in a concrete slab.

Generally a carpet installer will glue down the padding. Those I have watched punched a hole in the top of the can and just squigled the glue on the slab. The intent was to keep the padding from slipping around. This would make a mess for you to remove before you can stain the concrete, without the glue squiggles showing.