Posted: 8/1/2016 6:28:34 PM EDT
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Anybody ever bought a kit and done this yourself? How did it turn out? I'm thinking about what to do with the garage in my new place. Staining seems like a somewhat inexpensive option that will look nice enough. This is a finished garage and there's french doors going outside...it won't be used to park a car in it FYI.
ETA- Pics would be appreciated if you got 'em. |
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I've stained 2 basements. Both turned out good but the best one had newish concrete (less than 5 years old). The key is the prep work. The floor cannot be clean enough, seriously, I scrubbed the floors 6-8 times and used a floor waxer with special pads before I ever applied the stain.
Avoid the kits, find a supply house and get your stain from them and talk with locals that used your products. The kits from Lowes and Home Depot looked cheap compared to the stain that I bought from a professional shop. |
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Quoted: I've stained 2 basements. Both turned out good but the best one had newish concrete (less than 5 years old). The key is the prep work. The floor cannot be clean enough, seriously, I scrubbed the floors 6-8 times and used a floor waxer with special pads before I ever applied the stain. Avoid the kits, find a supply house and get your stain from them and talk with locals that used your products. The kits from Lowes and Home Depot looked cheap compared to the stain that I bought from a professional shop. |
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Quoted:
Anybody ever bought a kit and done this yourself? How did it turn out? I'm thinking about what to do with the garage in my new place. Staining seems like a somewhat inexpensive option that will look nice enough. This is a finished garage and there's french doors going outside...it won't be used to park a car in it FYI. ETA- Pics would be appreciated if you got 'em. YouTube is your friend here. I did quite a bit of studying before deciding to seal my stone paver patio. |
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Quoted:
What sort of professional shop? Quoted:
Quoted:
I've stained 2 basements. Both turned out good but the best one had newish concrete (less than 5 years old). The key is the prep work. The floor cannot be clean enough, seriously, I scrubbed the floors 6-8 times and used a floor waxer with special pads before I ever applied the stain. Avoid the kits, find a supply house and get your stain from them and talk with locals that used your products. The kits from Lowes and Home Depot looked cheap compared to the stain that I bought from a professional shop. Any concrete store should have it. Never seen a "kit" and done a few. The prep will depend on the age and finish of the concrete. |
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Quoted:
What sort of professional shop? Quoted:
Quoted:
I've stained 2 basements. Both turned out good but the best one had newish concrete (less than 5 years old). The key is the prep work. The floor cannot be clean enough, seriously, I scrubbed the floors 6-8 times and used a floor waxer with special pads before I ever applied the stain. Avoid the kits, find a supply house and get your stain from them and talk with locals that used your products. The kits from Lowes and Home Depot looked cheap compared to the stain that I bought from a professional shop. The shop that I got my supplies from does stained concrete professionally. The owner talked me through the whole process and even let me call him, of course I bought all my supplies from him. http://jrwelchconcrete.net/jr-welch-concrete-photos.html |
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Good friend of mine did it in his house. It was a mess from all the polishing and prep work, masking everywhere, mess everywhere. But it looks incredible.
Let me know if you need them and I can ask him the details, including what he polished with and the source of his parts/tools. |
| You must grind the floor if it has any type of sealer. If you put water on the floor and it beads then the floor has sealer. I used a product called Lithochrome. It turned out awesome. It took me 70 hours to sand 1200sq ft. It took less than an hour to apply the acid. I bought 3 cheap weed sprayers from Home Depot, because I used 3 colors. The have no metal parts, so there is nothing to corrode. Spray on, let set, use baking soda and water to neutralize, then seal. HVLP sprayer is the easiest way to seal. It is very hard to not get lines when using a wool applicator. Wear a respirator throughout the process. Trust me. |
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You must grind the floor if it has any type of sealer. If you put water on the floor and it beads then the floor has sealer. I used a product called Lithochrome. It turned out awesome. It took me 70 hours to sand 1200sq ft. It took less than an hour to apply the acid. I bought 3 cheap weed sprayers from Home Depot, because I used 3 colors. The have no metal parts, so there is nothing to corrode. Spray on, let set, use baking soda and water to neutralize, then seal. HVLP sprayer is the easiest way to seal. It is very hard to not get lines when using a wool applicator. Wear a respirator throughout the process. Trust me. Thanks for the tips. Seems like a reasonable thing to do so far, and the kit I'm looking at comes with everything you're talking about. |
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What sort of professional shop? Quoted:
Quoted:
I've stained 2 basements. Both turned out good but the best one had newish concrete (less than 5 years old). The key is the prep work. The floor cannot be clean enough, seriously, I scrubbed the floors 6-8 times and used a floor waxer with special pads before I ever applied the stain. Avoid the kits, find a supply house and get your stain from them and talk with locals that used your products. The kits from Lowes and Home Depot looked cheap compared to the stain that I bought from a professional shop. He probably meant contractor supply house. I can get some really cool stuff from my supplier, and it's the only place within a few hours drive to find it without ordering it. |
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If the garage is a finished space, I would honestly choose tile and a nice epoxy grout over the lipstick on a pig approach.
I've seen some cool stuff done with stain and sealer, but the labor to payoff ratio is pretty high compared to using tile and having it look brand new. |
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If the garage is a finished space, I would honestly choose tile and a nice epoxy grout over the lipstick on a pig approach. I've seen some cool stuff done with stain and sealer, but the labor to payoff ratio is pretty high compared to using tile and having it look brand new. That's a fair point. I'll have to consider that. |
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Did it throughout our house when we built it. As said before, prep. I can't count the number of times i mopped the entire floor before ever applying any stain. Used a pump up sprayer to apply. Let it sit for 24 hours. Mopped up the residual stain with a baking soda and water mixture (can't remember the ratio). Applied sealer with rollers. Make sure you have plenty of ventilation. You will get high. I love my floors. Durable, easy to clean, looks great. Fairly inexpensive. I did 2400 sq. ft. for about $500 (3 years ago). Here's a pic. Floor wasn't quite dry yet but you get the idea. <a href="http://s67.photobucket.com/user/oxfordethan/media/Mobile%20Uploads/497A59BC-A92C-4255-A3D7-FE70CCDFD86C.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h309/oxfordethan/Mobile%20Uploads/497A59BC-A92C-4255-A3D7-FE70CCDFD86C.jpg</a> Nice, looks good! |
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That's a fair point. I'll have to consider that. Quoted:
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If the garage is a finished space, I would honestly choose tile and a nice epoxy grout over the lipstick on a pig approach. I've seen some cool stuff done with stain and sealer, but the labor to payoff ratio is pretty high compared to using tile and having it look brand new. That's a fair point. I'll have to consider that. There are some other interesting options besides the acid stain approach too. I'm not terribly familiar with it, but I once got to work with a product that you troweled on very thin to pattern it out, let it cure and then marbled it with water based stains the next day, then finished with a very high gloss sealer or epoxy (epoxy is miserable, sealer is much easier to work with) It looked awesome, when done, but it was right back into that huge amount of labor territory, and it took some real finesse to pattern the first product. |