When our realtor took my fiancé and I into our condo, we quickly fell in love. The exposed brick, loft piping, and high ceilings were just a few things that caught our hearts. One of our favorite features were the wood flooring in the hallways, kitchen, and living/dining room. The one thing we didn't love? The carpet in both bedrooms. As an allergy sufferer (and a dog who just loves to throw up after eating too fast right on the carpet, of course), we knew we wanted to tear it up. One night we just went for it, and decided we were going to bring our condo back to its industrial roots, and restore the concrete floors. My kinda impulse project!
Ripping up the old carpet was the most fun part.
After many trips to the downstairs garbage bin, this is what we uncovered.
Looks like a mess, doesn't it? It was. This is the only part we decided to get the professionals involved. There is a lot of stuff that is stuck to the concrete from the carpet, and a lot of cracks and holes that need to be fixed. We had workers come in to fill them in, and grind down the concrete. If you ever do this, I highly suggest you pay more for the dustless option. It's still not completely dustless, but so much better than having your entire apartment covered.
I wanted to make sure you could still see all of the cracks and imperfections, and stay true to the raw look of concrete flooring. This is why we chose a stain and not more of a paint.
Then came the most annoying part. The cleaning.
It's so important to clean the floors multiple times before applying the stain. I can't even remember how many times we cleaned them, let them dry, and then cleaned them again. It took forever, but it's worth it to get it right.
Then it was staining time! We chose a grayish/bluish stain. Something on the darker side, but not too dark where you couldn't see the concrete come through.
And here is the final result!
Titan loves running around on them, too. Especially when all of our furniture was in the living room.
It was such a fun project, and I loved how they turned out. The next step is to extend the crown molding. Eventually, we would like to put in wood flooring, but I love the industrial look of them. And they're so easy to clean!
x Jill
