That's concrete???

I have had such a fun time working on our kitchen/dinning room/utility room floor. It has opened up a whole new can of worms for me. Now I want to do our bathroom floor, our front porch and the floor in the greenhouse!!!  We accidentally tore a big chunk out of the vinyl in the middle of our kitchen floor when we moved the refrigerator nine years ago.  I have had a big rug on the floor for all of these many years, but NO MORE RUG.

BEFORE:

1.) We removed the old vinyl floor. I had to scrub the concrete with a Choregirl and water to get up the old waterbase glue that was used to stick the vinyl down.  I have had a lot of email asking what a Chroegirl is..so here is a picture.  It is a metal scouring pad and you can get them at the grocery store in the cleaning section.

2.) I made a tile pattern 18" x 18" out of freezer paper.

3.) I found the center of the area I wanted to paint and snapped a chalk line so my faux grout line would be straight. The most difficult part of the whole project is keeping the lines straight!

4.) We had a crack in our concrete floor. I filled it with Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty from the hardware store, let it dry and sanded it even with floor. There is a product called Concrete Resurfacer which I am going to put on the floor in the greenhouse to make it smoother as it is a very rough concrete. I don't know anything about that product yet but have seen it on television so will give it a try.  It is supposed to be good to level out your floor or cover any discoloration on concrete.

5.) I took painter's tape and cut it into about 1/4 inch strips (I think you can buy it already that size?), put down my tile pattern and taped off all my blocks. The 1/4" is where the faux grout lines will be. I also allowed for a 1-1/2" square block every 36" that I wanted to paint black.

6.) I stained all of my 18" blocks with a product called Rembrandt Polymer Stain. It comes in all different colors and is water cleanup. I used the Burnt Umber color and found it online from www.kemiko.com.  They have an acid stain but I went with the water base stain as I did not want to mess with acid and odors. I poured a small amount of the stain in a disposable metal pie plate and using a Scott paper towel, I put on about four coats of the stain, letting it dry in between coats. It dries really fast. You may want to use just this color, call it finished and seal it,  but I had to experiment further.

7.) I then lightly sponged (with natural sea sponge) on an acrylic craft paint DeltaCeramcoat in Burnt Sienna and when that dried I added a very light sponging of DeltaCeramcoat Spice Brown. All of my acrylic paints were purchased online from www.craftcatalog.com. I painted the 1-1/2" blocks with Americana Lamp (Ebony) Black. These colors go really well with our oak cabinets, black appliances and rust carpet that is in the other part of the house.

8.) When the burnt sienna, spice brown and ebony were dry, I pulled up the painter's tape and handpainted the faux grout line with a tiny brush and Americana acrylic paint in Driftwood (also purchased from craftcatalog).

9.) The floor was then finished with three coats of Minwax Polyacrylic Clear Gloss Protective Finish purchased from Wal-Mart then three coats of Future Floor Finish found at the grocery store. Read the instructions for drying times in between coats for both products.

My constant helper, Dinky Sugar

AFTER:

This project took us several weeks as we decided to get rid of wallpaper and texture and paint walls in the kitchen, dining room and hall.  I stopped working on the floor because we thought the walls should be finished first. The floor was a very time consuming labor of love but certainly well worth the time and effort involved and sooo much cheaper than the real travertine tile or even the less expensive tile from your local home center. When I do the floor in the greenhouse or the front porch, I am thinking of using a fern stencil and making the floor solid (no faux grout lines to paint)...but those decisions will have to wait as that is a project for next summer.

Do this rewarding project.  You can always cover it up if you don't like the results. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Enjoy!

UPDATE: June 7, 2005
A note of thanks to all that have sent emails with questions and comments about our concrete floor.  I am delighted that I have motivated you to start your own floor project. Our floor was painted in the summer of 2004.  It is about one year later and we still LOVE OUR FLOOR!!!  It has held up very well to the traffic, wear and tear of two active folks, an energetic LhasaApso, two playful cats and visits/dinners with family and friends.  I have not put any wax on this floor except the original Future Floor Finish and I only damp mop it with plain water, no soap or cleaning solution of any kind.  It seems to get better with age, as I hope all of us do.  Peaceful blessings....~Edna~

UPDATE: January 7, 2007
We still love our floor and wish all of the floors in our house were this way and as easy to take care of....maybe that is another project?

Speaking of another project, while we had the washer and dryer out of the utility room to do the floor, we painted our dryer with spray appliance paint.  It was green from the 1970's but now it is white and matches the washing machine.  Another twenty years, and we may get our money's worth on the dryer...
~eb~