So a little history is we live in Texas and our home is a slab foundation this means concrete underneath our carpet, not plywood subfloor. Well our water heater burst the other week and leaked 60 gallons of water in the hallway and two bedrooms. We have been saving up for hardwood floors but they are expensive. Now the padding underneath the carpet is ruined, soaked and smelly, I pulled the padding out and the smell is gone so its not in the carpet just the pad, and I dried the concrete with a shop vac.
Here is my question I need ideas what to do with my floors now. Should I just replace the pad and lay the same carpet back down? Pull the carpet and pad up and paint / stain the concrete? I still cannot afford the hardwood option right now and am just curious of what other ideas are out there.
another option is to put down some linoleum that LOOKS like hardwood floor....
but personally, I would stain the concrete. :)
Concrete floors are great.
And, there are MANY ways, you can color/style the concrete.
For example:
http://www.granicrete.com/#
This is popular in my State, per residential homes and commercial installations.
Just make sure, that you consult with a Professional.
Or know how to do it, if doing it yourself.
I would love to have stained concrete floors! I think they are beautiful.
We are just down the road from you here in Keller. We have acid stained concrete floors. We went with this option because our pool and wet dog were just too hard on our carpets and hubby did not want hard wood floors.
We did the acid staining ourselves. It was cheap, but very tedious. We LOVE these floors. They are indestructible. We get tons of compliments too. My only complaints are that they get slippery when wet and when our kids were going through the climbing phase it was nerve wracking.
We sealed the floors so we have to wax them twice a year. Not difficult, it just mops on. In between we sweep or vacuum. I mop very rarely, if ever. I believe I have step by step pictures we took for my mother. PM me if you'd like me to send them to you.
ohhhh now is your chance! Stain your concrete!!! Concrete is beautiful when stained!
Believe it or not, you can glue contractor's paper or just brown paper bags to the concrete and it and it looks just like stone. I did this to my bathroom and it is beautiful. I would not mind having it in every room.
To do it, clean the concrete and make sure there are no high spots. Let it dry. Tear the paper into whatever size "stones" you want. Glue it down using a mixture of half Elmer's glue and water. Make sure to smooth each piece out. If there is an air bubble don't worry about it. When it is dry, use sand paper to rough up a few spots and any air bubbles. Put a coat of stain on. Let it dry, then put a few coats of Minwax Ultra-fast drying polyurethane on top. I used a respirator when applying the poly. The smell lasts only a couple of hours.
I love my concrete floors but make sure to stain them and not paint them. The previous owner painted the floors and it is now chipping up. But they are very slippery when wet but very easy to clean. =)
I have painted concrete floors. In one sense I love them because they are so low maintenance and are so cool during the summer. And great for cleaning up spills. On the other hand, they are so cold during the winter and are slippery. I plan on keeping them until my son is older and then put in carpet.
I would call my favorite carpet, tile, wood floor guy
Brian Mulvehill ###-###-#### The Boston Carpet Guy
____@____.com
you might be surprised at the cost. I know I was.
