Staining my concrete game room floor...

OldTymeToys

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I started a thread a few weeks ago to get some input on flooring after we had a small plumbing problem in our downstairs basement/game room. Nothing too major- no damage to anything but the carpet. Luckily, the previous owners didn't cap the drain under the carpet and most of the water found its way down the drain.

So, as I was looking into the best flooring options, I started to think down the road and all the "what if's" that could happen down there. Wifey and I both thought tile was the best solution (no more carpet!), until a few members posted about staining their concrete floors. So I gave it a go.

I looked all over the internet for the safest and best way to stain the concrete. Muratic acid yields the best effect (like dogbowl's game room), but it's really potent and I didn't want to take a chance with it indoors. So I opted for a water-based stain kit by Rust-Olem:
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According to most reviews, it's really durable and there are a few things you can do to further the durability.

Last weekend, I began cleaning the concrete. What a major pain in the a$$, unless you like mopping. Here's a pic of the floor before the cleaning/stripping:

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You can see the paint, dirt, etc. from the previous owners. No big deal- a little Citristrip and it came off, no problem. I then patched the holes left by the tack strips from the carpet. One thing I was concerned with was that there almost seemed like there was a previous sealer applied. So I got out the rough stuff- Stypeeze and applied it to a small area that looked shiny. Nothing really changed, so I proceeded with the staining process.

First step is to etch the concrete with the mild acid provided. It basically deep-cleaned the concrete with a lot of fizzing. Then rinse, rinse, rinse.

The kit comes with 2 stains that can be mixed at the paint counter. I did a light and a dark to get a mottled effect. I put the light stain down everywhere and then after an hour, I put the dark stain down in areas. Once I was happy with it, I put 3 coats of the sealer on it. Here's where it stands:

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I tried the invisible fluorescent paint, but it didn't work. It just peeled right off the floor. Oh well. I'm pretty happy with it. I'll go back tomorrow to inspect it, add a top wax to add durability and then I'll paint the drain cover.
 

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Interesting, i just finished my walls of my garage and i'm now working in a crawl space and the walls will be done. I noticed the Muriatic i used to etch the walls changed the color of the floor where some pooled a dark brown color.... Unfortunately when i went to get more i was given UGL Etch powder and i'm not sure it works the same.

Floors are next great lil read here love the pictures.

btw that acid is not nice stuff, i broke out my organic resperator for the crawlspace job.
 
Interesting, i just finished my walls of my garage and i'm now working in a crawl space and the walls will be done. I noticed the Muriatic i used to etch the walls changed the color of the floor where some pooled a dark brown color.... Unfortunately when i went to get more i was given UGL Etch powder and i'm not sure it works the same.

Floors are next great lil read here love the pictures.

btw that acid is not nice stuff, i broke out my organic resperator for the crawlspace job.

Thanks! Yeah, muratic acid is nasty. That's why I opted for the safer route. It will turn the concrete all different variations of brown- that's what makes it look like natural stone when it's done on floors correctly.
 
Here's a comparison of dogbowl's acid stained concrete floor and my water-based stained concrete floor:

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His looks much better, but I'm still happy with how mine turned out...
 
Update- so I added quarter round to finish the floor this weekend. While I was waiting for the paint to dry before I could install the pieces, I decided to paint a stripe...

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In my opinion, that's the coolest look you can do on a gameroom floor. It should be really, really durable too and last a long time.

If you think about it, this is what all the major retail places have went to. Wal Mart, Lowes, malls, etc. ALL have stained concrete everywhere.
 
acid etched concrete is great. I prefer water based polyurethane as the last step, easy to maintain, easy to fix, hard as nails.

I prefer blacklight carpet,,, but as a carpet cleaner I am biased.
 
It really looks good! I love the look. I did the best U-Coat it for my garage and it looked great for two years but with occasional use with the lifts it just never held up. Never again; I like this option the best. Congrats!
 
Hey .. that's a good looking floor!

We had ours done by professionals (and it wasn't cheap) but the floors came out very well. We went with a 'coffee' color, IIRC. The acid was serious business.

Once you have your floors done, youll be much more aware of scratches on them. Our floors are polished and when moving games they do leave marks (streaks really). I've got nylon feet (from Marco?) under my games and sliders under my DK and those help to avoid that.

No more dragging and pushing the pinballs around, though. Even with new and smooth metal feet, those really dig in.
 
Hey .. that's a good looking floor!

We had ours done by professionals (and it wasn't cheap) but the floors came out very well. We went with a 'coffee' color, IIRC. The acid was serious business.

Once you have your floors done, youll be much more aware of scratches on them. Our floors are polished and when moving games they do leave marks (streaks really). I've got nylon feet (from Marco?) under my games and sliders under my DK and those help to avoid that.

No more dragging and pushing the pinballs around, though. Even with new and smooth metal feet, those really dig in.

Thanks man! Yours is still the best stained concrete I've seen, but I can deal with mine ;)

You might want to try the felt sliders. Make sure to get the 3M ones- I tried some of the no-name brand and they tore up with the weight of the game. The 3M ones are holding up fine.

Here's another shot of my floor with the 1/4 round installed:

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Thinking about doing this. How thick/glossy is your seal coat? How are the scratches if any? Are you using Nylon leg levelers?

The sealer is nice and glossy... to start. It was suggested that I use high traffic floor wax and I did. I used Zep Floor Wax. Super easy to apply, just mop it on. I mopped it on 4 times.

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Most of my scratches are in the wax and/or sealer and don't look too bad. It's unavoidable- it's going to get scratched moving these games around. I use the felt 3M sliders on all of my games and they work great. The only issue is that I have a separation between the concrete slabs in one area and sometimes the felt pads slide off. There are some decent sized scratches there, but they are under the games. I'm due to wax it all again as it's starting to look dull, but I'll have to move all the games out to do it. :(

All in all, if I did it again (and I will be soon just becasue I'm planning a full remodel down there) I would either have it profesionally stained (muratic acid) or have tile installed. The water-based "stained" concrete is a decent option if you're not looking for long-term...
 
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