Last weekend I finally decided to do something about my garage floor in my home. I had enough of tracking dust into my house and it just didn't look very good.
I didn't want to use epoxy which is popular in garages. The problem with epoxies is they require a lot of floor prep which I just didn't want to get into. I was after a different look anyway.
I picked up 2 gallons of concrete acid stain, a Urethane sealer, a garden sprayer, tape, squeegy, I think thats all I needed. The floor had a few blemishes and I scraped off some concrete builup that had been on the floor from who knows what. I used a leaf blower to get all the dust off the floor.
Once the floor was clean I tapped off a few area filled my sprayer with acid stain and started to stain the floor. I wanted the color to be dark so I stained the floor 3 times. That took about 2 hours. After leaving the stain on the floor for 4 hours I washed off the residue witha mop and foam squeegy. It would have gone quicker if I had a wet vac.
The next morning I mixed up the 2 part urethane and rolled on. The result was awesome. This really is a simple project and cost me about $330.00 for a 2 car 500 square foot garage.
Once finished the garage looked more like a nice restaurant or retail store floor. It looked like I should convert it to another use.
In residential homes 2 areas that can be stained are garages and basements. I've rehabbed lots of properties and use stains all the time. The results are always great and add unique curb appeal and value to a home.
In the current market of depressed prices and foreclosed properties concrete stains and decorative concrete overlays can make you a lot off money. I've used concrete overlays inside and out to resurface stairs, pool decks, walkways, patios and foundations.
Most people when they see unattractive concrete don't know there is a world of great products that can spiff up a property. I've fixed pools that most people think needs $50,000.00 of complete renovation that I've made look better than new for under $10,000.00.
Sometimes values will go up just because the market is strong. You can always make money knowing how to upgrade properties. I talk about this at Metrocrete.com a blog with lots of value added tips.
I'm new to Active Rain. I'd like to know if this kind of information is valuable to the community. I hope to hear from you.
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