How to Stain Concrete Floors

After months of promising I would do it, I have finally uploaded my How-To Guide to Staining Concrete Floors.

When we purchased the house in October, it was in disarray. Granted we knew that when we purchased a short-sale home. The previous owner had moved out six months prior, plus appeared to have never done any upkeep in the home. So Sad. This house is a charmer.

The carpeting was absolutely disgusting in the living room and master bedroom. There were these huge, scary stains everywhere. We have our theories of what caused the stains (hehe), but just knew the carpeting had to go. Even in the appraisal of the home it clearly stated the flooring reduced the overall value. Anyways, when we lived in Florida we rented a home that had concrete flooring. I had never heard of this flooring option, and quickly fell in love with it. The ease of cleaning was remarkable. Because no dirt or dust can hide anywhere, it did become an addiction to always clean the floor. Mostly because the dirt had no where to go! I would swiffer it at least every other day (knowing now to NOT use swiffer cleaning agents on my floor due to the chemicals breaking down and eventually wearing out the wax and sealant)

This flooring always stayed in my head as we moved to California and then back to Texas. When we purchased our home, updating the flooring was an easy decision: Concrete! We did start looking at professionals coming in to stain for us, but after talking to a few people they said doing it ourself wouldn't be difficult. I started researching on the internet and realized it would be a manageable task for us. Mostly the cost was the deal maker. Contractors were quoting $4.00 - $4.50/square foot, and we came in around $1.10/square foot. Can't beat that.

D and I did almost all of the labor. My father-in-law had sealed floors in year's past, and really did an extraordinary job putting the sealant and wax on.

Check out the video below. I made this video the way I would have wanted to see the process explained to me. Watch the video in its entirety, it has lots of information from beginning to end. Please ask any questions you may have.