Concrete Staining

We have and love it. Jack Simmons owns the House that Jack Re-built. ###-###-####. He is a super talented and very professional. He has great prices, too.

There was an article in the star telegram back in July about 2 sisters that have a concrete staining business and they live in Arlington. I haven't used them, don't know much about them except from the article from July 1, 2008 in Section E. The name of the company is Sublime Surface Solutions. The number is ###-###-####.

Good Luck! I will be curious to hear how it goes.
M. K

We had our carpet taken out and the concrete stained and love it and will do it again when we move. All of our allergies have decreased and the floor is clean. We purchased the Rumba and it does a great job on cleaning the floors - all you have to do is push a button and off our mini maid goes :) We have a friend that does this for a living, he's very talented. His name is Bob L, his phone # is ###-###-#### and he lives in Ovilla TX. One downside is it is pretty painful when those little ones fall. We are not putting rugs down for that reason. Any imperfections you may see in your concrete will add cool personalit to the floor. We have our dining room done with a black border and a leopard look and the rest of the house is done with multible browns swirled together - looks great. Also I would recommend hiring someone. We have had two friends have to pay to have someone redo their attempt at doing floors. And, diddo on getting everything in writing. Hope this helps! ~ M. M mother of 3 boys 7,6, and 4 and one on the way.

Hey C.- I know of a great company that refinishes hardwood floors- Buff & Coat- Todd ###-###-####
If I hear of a conrete stainer I will let you know- I love the way that looks but not real sure if thats the way to with a living room- it makes it a bit less cozy- I can hook you up with great carpet guys-.......
D.
www.partyangelsus.com
____@____.com

I am an Interior Designer and can tell you this from experience. If you plan to remove your carpet to stain the concrete underneath it may be a lot harder than you anticipate. Unless builders know in advance that you are planning on staining your floors, they usually are not very careful with what happens to the concrete before the house is finished. This is most times because whatever gets on the ground is almost always going to be covered up by wood, tile or carpet. So when you take your carpet up, you may have a LOT of scraping and sanding to do before the floor is actually to a place where is can be stained. Just FYI

Also, most of my contractors are only for commercial jobs, so I am no help there. Look in the yellow pages but make sure you get references and most importantly get EVERYTHING in writing before the job starts! Hope that helps

Hi there! My husband and I did our living room and den and we love the results. We did all the work ourselves. It's hard work, but totally worth it. You may be surprised at all the nasty dirt that's under your carpet. My husband's allergies have decreased dramatically without that carpet. I'd be happy to answer any questions if you're thinking about doing it yourself. We weren't able to find any contractors that would be willing just to do 2 rooms.

I do not have a recommendation on a company or contractor, but make sure you get one. My husband andI tried to do it by ourselves and when we pulled the carpet off, there was much more work that we did not expect. Cleaning the concrete(paint and debri), acid cleaning(decide not to do) and other defects on the concrete that we were not expecting to deal with. To make the long story short, with all the defect, my husband said, I was not going to like the finish, so we went with laminate flooring. We really tried to get the staining, but before we spend more on it, we decided to quit. If we had contracted someone to do the work maybe we would have had success. But I love our laminate flooring(did it ourselves in three days).

When you pull your carpet up, you'll get to see all the imperfections in the concrete. Some of this is fine, but there may be some spots that will not look good after being stained. We had a poor experience with this, but I do like the way it looks in newer buildings. Be sure to get a FEW opinions from experts.

We bought our house with stained concrete. It is nice, easy to take care of, but the stain seems to be wearing away in high traffic areas. (my guess is the previous owners stained it 3 years ago when they bought the house) I wish I'd gotten more info on how to take care of it (hint, hint- if anyone knows, please share;)

We are thinking that in a couple of years we will put wood/ pergo type/ tile down. For now, it works, but we intend to put other flooring down eventually.

By the way, stubbing your toe in the imperfections- hurts. Plus- floor is slippery. I don't allow the kids to wear "just socks" on the concrete- shoes or bare feet. Our 90 lb chocolate lab is constantly slipping when turning corners (a bit scary to watch since she ruptured a disc in her neck in Feb- yikes!).

Good luck!

Hi, my mother just finished staining a ton of concrete around her house outide. The inside of her house is stainded too, but she had a professional do it while the house was being built. Anyway, I can think a few precausions you might want to think about before starting. When you take the carpet up, there are tack strips around the walls. There is a strong possibility that the concrete will chip and look bad. There could also be scrapes and unsightly things in the concrete. When contractors build a house and know the concrete will be stained, they are careful not to hurt the floor in anyway, ohterwise they assume it will be covered by wood, carpet or tile. The other problem will be the fumes. You'll need to ventilate the house for a week. Open windows is tough...especially if you are not sleeping there. Yes, you will have to leave. The fumes are so strong and you will smell long after you move back in. My mother loves her floors and she doesn't wax twice a year and they are fine so far. I think taht for you situation though, you might want to cosider wood or laminate or tile. Good luck!

There are two ladies in Arlington who work out of their home. Please call the Star Telegram newspaper. They had an article about these ladies. I also am planning to do this in two of my bedrooms. A.

We did it to our living room and we LOVE it! We have a pool and all the water traffic was way too hard on our carpet. It cleans easy, just sweep and occasionally mop. We also keep it waxed, but we only do that twice a year to protect it from scratches. The wax we use is very easy, it is simply mopped on and left to dry, but it does take about 4 coats. We did the acid staining ourselves, so I can't recommend anyone for you. It was easy to do ourselves, but preparing the slab was an incredibly tedious job. When we sealed it, we made the mistake of thinking we could sleep in the house that night while it dried...we wound up crawling through the bedroom window with our baby and heading over to the in-laws at midnight after we couldn't take the fumes any longer, but other than that the project went easy. It took us about four days to get the slab ready, a day to stain and clean up and then we had to wait for everything to dry so we could seal it. I think it might have been a week from start to finish, but I am sure someone who does it professionally could have finished it in a few days.

Sorry I dont have a contractor name for you but I do have a warning. Please beware that when you re- sale your home it will have to be covered because a traditional bank loan considers it "unfinished flooring" and will not loan on the home. I think concrete flooring is beautiful our last home was stained concrete and I found it to be easy to clean on a daily basis but a little bit high on maintence for the waxing to keep it looking really good. Overall I give it an A.