This is what our concrete looked like after we pulled up the carpet. Pretty rough.
We didn't clean it as much as I wish we did as we rushed to get the master, hallway, formal space, and living room down over memorial day weekend. But this is what it looked like after we painted it.
After painting, we "stained" it. I guess it really isn't stained concrete, it's more stained paint, but it looks the same regardless. We're happy with it. This is what it looks like finished. Stained and sealed with poly.
Things we learned doing this:
1. The paint is really easy
2. The stain is REALLLLLY wattery and will splash all of the place. Wear clothes you are prepared to ruin because it will get all over you.
3. The stain dries ridiculously fast. You have to keep moving quickly to keep from visible lines showing from going over dry stain with wet stain.
4. Clean and scrape the concrete more than you think is necessary. In hindsight I wish we would have done this. We did it in the bedrooms we did after the fact and the finish is a lot better.
5. It's actually really easy. The paint takes about 6 hours to dry and the stain takes about 6 hours to dry. We gave them each 24 but we wanted to make sure. We gave the poly about 72 hours because we wanted to make really sure that it was completely dried so we didn't get visible spots when we walked on it.
ETA pics. Sorry for the tiny pics.
[This message has been edited by tamu2009 (edited 7/12/2012 9:59a).]
[This message has been edited by tamu2009 (edited 7/12/2012 10:00a).]