You Stained My Floor!

Just before taking a much needed break from before Christmas through today, we completed a flooring project out at the coast. I was (as was the homeowner) very pleased with the result, so I thought I'd share a couple of photos with you.

The owners had recently built a brand new vacation home overlooking the Ocean and as one of the final things to complete, hired another contractor to do a stain treatment on the concrete basement floor. Unfortunately things did not work out as they had hoped. As you'll see in the before and after photos below, what they attempted to do was kind of cheesy looking at best and considering it's at least a $800k home, cheesy was not going to fly.

That's when we got the call. Mrs L. wanted something that would be complimentary to rest of the home which was done with impeccable taste and done by very skilled craftsmen. She also wanted the finished floor to look like large tiles instead of just concrete. After talking with Mrs L. and surveying the botched floor, we proposed a solution.

We would grind off both layers of the single-color, paint/stain that had been applied and apply a multicolored, water based stain treatment to the slab.

When the slab was poured they had saw cuts done at 30 inch intervals. This would help in the "Tile like" effect. A great idea, but no one had ever proposed filling in these saw cuts (about 1/8 inch wide). Instead they were left open. Not terribly attractive and also a great place for dirt, sand and other debris to get hung up in. For this we proposed filling them in with a polymer modified cement done in very dark gray and then grinding off the excess flush with the rest of the slab. The result would give the effect of having grout in between the faux tile.

Oh, one more wrinkle, as an added bonus, all the moldings and doors had already been installed and painted. This meant we would have to be extra cautious when grinding so we didn't damage any of the finished woodwork.

So off to the coast we went with a plan to transform the not so pretty floor into a bit of art.

We ground, we cleaned, we masked, we filled, we ground some more, cleaned some more and cleaned one more time just for good measure. WHEW!

After applying the stain and letting it dry thoroughly, we applied two coats of a clear water based epoxy. This gave it a nice semi-gloss finish and will protect the surface for many years to come.

Here's the result:

(From left to right - 1 when we arrived, 2 after grinding, 3 our finished floor)

(This one's from the top of the stairs looking down. Cool keyhole!)

Have I mentioned I love what I do for a living?