Back to Polished Concrete
I think we are going to scrap the idea of laying tile downstairs and go back to polished concrete. In case you don’t remember, or weren’t reading back in September of 2007, we already made the decision to polish the concrete in the basement. We diamond polished the floors to smooth out the rough foundation slab and then applied the glossy sealer. That was it, we were done.
Wait. Not so fast. Now that downstairs is almost done, the floors still look unfinished so we decided to install tile. We have literally been looking at tile for 3 months and NOTHING has blown us away. I think we were going to do just because we thought we should, to make it look more finished. And then we rediscovered stained polished concrete. Again.
A buddy of ours (talented artist) sent us this site to check out what another DIY couple did with polished concrete at their house. They did a really good job. Check out the designs they created with masking tape on their polished concrete floors.
The stained and acid sketch polished concrete floors I have been looking at on the web look amazing. Summer is stoked on the idea of a design/tile look and I love the idea of a four pointed compass at the entrance way downstairs. I think we found our solution. Now, the new task is to strip the old glossy sealer so the concrete actually absorbes the stain.
I have read a few different ‘do it yourself’ websites and watched a few videos on how to remove the sealer, and I have narrowed our two options to non-toxic strippers; Soy and Citrus.
Citrus Concrete Seal Stripper
The citrus stripper seams much more labor intensive. It involves spray 20 cubic feet at a time, letting the stripper site with cotton drop cloths over it, then pealing up the cloth and most of the stripper with it. This needs to be repeated until all the stripper is gone.
Soy Concrete Seal Remover
The Soy concrete sealer stripper seams to be much less labor intensive (lazy gene). The Soy is applied to the floor, let sit and then gels up and can be removed with a wet-vac and hard bristled broom.
Really, the job is going to be a lot of work no matter what option we choose. Summer and I will both have to move our entire offices and clear out the entire downstairs to the gym, bathroom/laundry room and the platform in my office. Man, this DIY stuff sure is exhausting!
If anyone has any good advice, PR supply information or recommendations, we would greatly appreciate it!
Tags: Polished Concrete
May 30th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I love the stain idea, though it looks like a lot of work up front. I like that you can enhance with your own patterns and designs. The compass design is beautiful (especially when reflecting your own home’s orientation), as are others like the yin-yang symbol. Fran
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May 30th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Hi there, well, we just built a back concrete deck, one section is 20 x 20 with a “sidewalk” (40 wide) to connect to another 8 x 10 deck, we are doing the stained polish concrete and so far we are very pleased with the results… we had a guy polish the concrete and at HomTite Depot, we bought the semi transparent stain from Behr, and sprayed it with a garden sprayer, let it dry really well between coats, we are on our fourth coat and the result so far is a stone look that we love…. we should give it a few more coats and then seal it with a “wet look sealer”. got the ideas from several sites ..hope this helps
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May 30th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
sorry I meant Home Depot…LOL
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June 1st, 2010 at 5:58 am
“Cool!”
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June 1st, 2010 at 9:46 am
Hey there – we’re building a small house in Barrio Pueblo and are going with polished concrete floors as well. Can you tell us why you felt the floors still looked unfinished after you used the diamond grinder to polish them – and then sealed them?
Thx.
- tom
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June 2nd, 2010 at 7:56 am
@Tom
The floors look nice, but they still just look like shiny concrete. After looking around on the web, we’ve decided that staining the concrete and forming designs similar to tile with tape will look MORE finished. I think it will give the floors more character.
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June 2nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Stefan, You and Summer both seam to have a little artistic abilities and this way the project will have a lot more impact to both of you when finished. I have no doubt that the finish product will be sensational.
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June 5th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Hello from Puerto Rico, does anyone knows were I can buy Stains in Puerto Rico? thanks
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June 7th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Here is my two cents on attempting to stain the concrete after you have already ground and sealed. My concern would be getting the sealant removed completely. When you grind the concrete surface you open up the pores and it acts like a sponge. The sealant gets sucked in to all the open surfaces. Unlike a natural stone that when you polish it closes up the pores almost completely, concrete is a different animal. When you use a liquid stripping agent whether it be soy or citrus, the removal agent will at best remove the top sealant and leave some of the sealant in the pores. When you now apply the color stain it will absorb in some areas and others not so much. Depending on the look you are going for it may work out fine but would probably try it in an area (possibly a closet) that if it fails horribly then no biggie. I may be over thinking this but as someone who has almost 15 years doing construction I am always on the side of what if this experiment goes horribly wrong.
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July 25th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Cement dyes can be bought in Puerto Rico at and old hardware store in Old San Juan. It is located in San Sebastian street, I think the name is Ferreteria San Nicolas. The product is not visible to the public, I found large metal drums in the backstore while taking pictures for the book “Puerto Rico Tile Designs”. Available colors (july 2009/one year ago) were cobalt blue, green, yellow, black, terracota and gray. They are sold by the weight.
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