Concrete Floors: Don't Cry Over Spilt Paint

Before we moved into our house last year we hired a company to come in and rip up the nasty white circa 1980's porcelain tile that was all over our house. It was a HUGE and very messy job, so it was good to get it done before we moved everything in. We looked at all possible options for flooring once they ripped everything up...


Carpet- NO, not for us. We live in Florida for one, so having carpet would make the house feel warmer, and make us run the AC on a lower temp which would increase our bill. We also have pets, and well...carpet absorbs odor.

Tile- I thought about updating the house with a larger better quality tile, but this house had a pool, and the thought of my daughter running in and out of the house with a wet bathing suit made me cringe. I saw too many scenarios that ended with emergency room visits. So tile was out.

Wood- I really did want wood. You know, dark, aged, handscraped, wide planked wood. Ahhh...but after getting quotes that sounded more like the price of a brand new car, we scratched that off the list (for now).

Slate- Again, price was a concern on this one, and because it's not really what I wanted I didn't want to fork out all that money only to rip it up later and replace with wood.

So, what's left? What kind of floor could we have that would keep us cool in the warm months, was easy to clean, low maintenance, looked nice, and wasn't expensive? Concrete.

We opted to go with stained concrete. Cost wise- about the same as laying down wood laminate. Very budget friendly and when we are ready to invest in real wood floors we will just be able to lay the wood right over because the concrete will act as a sub floor. Having concrete allows us to keep our AC at...ready...83 degrees!!!! Yet, it is extremely cool and comfortable inside the house. It's very easy to keep clean, and we don't have to worry about moisture ruining the floors.

Sounds incredible right?! Why doesn't everyone have concrete flooring!? Is there anything bad about having concrete?? Yes, there is...but it's extremely fixable!

You know how we've been working on our guest bath? Well the other night when my daughter woke up to use the bathroom, I guess she thought we missed a few spots on the wall, and well...our floor looked like this after she was done....

Totally our fault for leaving the paint in there. It is her bathroom after all . So without a ton of overreacting, and tears I just said "we'll paint over it." So I went to Home Depot, and bought two sample paints that I felt resembled the floor almost perfectly.

 

Using an old rag I poured equal amounts of paint onto the floor working in sections and mixed the two colors together in a figure eight movement. It resembles the troweling effect that the concrete workers made on the rest of the floor. Before I knew it, the floor looked brand new again.

You see, the only problem with choosing concrete for your floor is the fact that it's porous. So if you spill something on it like paint it's almost impossible to get it off, but because your floor is just concrete you can just paint right over it. So is it really a problem? I guess not! We really are happy with the choice we made to go with concrete, and I think soon enough it will catch on and you'll see it on interior residential floors more and more.