A Wood Look For A Cement Floor

It's officially been a year since we bought the flip house, and I guess I've been so busy that I hadn't really gotten around to starting this blog adventure. But now I've really got something special to share, and  it was just the incentive I needed to get back to blog business. 

So, if you've looked at the other posts, you might have noticed the...pink...yes, pink carpet that we inherited when we purchased the house. I thought I was tough, people. I thought I could ride out the bubble gum storm until we were ready to put in laminate, or wood look tile, or maybe ANY OTHER COLOR THAN PINK carpet...but I hit my breaking point with it a few months back, and none of those things were in the renovations budget for the foreseeable future, so I started looking into low budget floor options. I looked at concrete staining, paper bag flooring, painting. Each option had its merits, but I wasn't completely excited about any of them. Until I came across a few tutorials for paper bag flooring that had a finished look of real wood. I was so excited! I had found the answer to my situation. 

 Convincing my husband that we should do a paper maché style treatment to our bare concrete floor, complete with elmers glue, and brown paper was a tough sell though. He was skeptical about the process. So we decided to just prime and paint the concrete so it would be cleanable, and throw a rug over it for a few years until we were ready for bigger and better things. 

  By this point, I had been researching concrete floor treatments and techniques for about a solid month. Over a dozen blogs, more YouTube videos than I care to admit to, Pinteresting till my eyes bled. Which is why I think that,the day I went to get the high density rollers to prime the floor for the brown paint we bought, I bought a wood graining tool too...cause I sorta, sorta had an idea....and the rest is now history. When my husband came home from work the day after we bought the paint, he was pretty surprised. May I present:

My Wood Look Concrete Floor Treatment Tutorial

I will preface this by saying we had already checked the condition of our slab before we ever started this project, and knew that it was free of large cracks, gouges, or dips/highly unlevel areas. Therefore, I do not have any experience with fixing any of these concrete slab issues.

 I will list below the products and supplies we used for this project. We were covering an area that is 217 sq. ft., and spent about $150 on materials. It took me three weekends plus a couple week days to complete this because I was not able to do all the steps back to back, but Im sure it would take some of you less time if you have help and aren't hindered by children, pets, life, etc.

To begin, we did the most satisfying thing on this planet. We removed that pink flippin carpet.

Because this is our living room, we moved all the furniture from this 2/3 of the room onto the carpet of the other 1/3, because we are doing this project in sections. We removed the carpet and carpet padding from the area. We were fortunate that the padding was not laid with tons of glue, so we only had a few areas where we would need to remove glue residue. If you have a newer home, be prepared to wrestle with a fair amount of still very tacky carpet padding glue. Ours was old, and sparse, so it was pretty easy to scrape away. We used Citristrip, because it's my favorite stripper and we already had it on hand.

I like it because it doesn't have too terrible of a smell and it works quickly. Simply apply it to the glue residue area, allow it to sit for 30-40 minutes, then scrape away with a flat scraper. We also used hand scrapers to remove paint drops, buildup, and drywall mud that was left on the slab before the carpet had been installed. We swept the floor, and went to work removing all the tack strips.

We (and by we I mean my hubby) used this chisel and scraper for the job, removing all tack strips from the perimeter of the area. The tack strips had been nailed to the slab, so some chipping of the slab occurred when they were removed. We also had a few small holes in the middle of the floor here and there, so we filled all the chipped areas and holes with cement compound. 

We used this just for filling small holes, most no larger than quarters. It applied similar to a drywall patch compound and we smoothed each one with the scraper and allowed it to dry overnight. Once it was dry we used a pole sander attachment and 100 grit sand paper to smooth away the texture caused by the concrete patch. We also sanded over any areas of the floor that looked textured for whatever reason and swept the whole floor again. 

Now that the floor is debris free, holes are patched, glue residue removed, it's time to deep clean the slab. After reading quite a few tutorials on the various floor treatments, I decided to go with a good old cotton mop and hot soapy water. I just used the floor cleaner I already use, Mr. Clean with Gain, and very hot water. If your floor is particularly dirty, you may want to opt for a floor cleaner that is also a degreaser to help cut through the grime and prep the surface well. No matter what cleaner you choose, the key is to mop the floor at least 5-7 times, allowing the concrete to dry between mopping, and changing out the mop solution often to ensure you get all the dust and dirt off of the floor. The fine dust is always the last to linger around, so make sure to mop until the slab feels smooth, and without any sandy or grittiness. You can also use a shop vac to help pull the dirt from the floor in addition to the mopping. 

Now that your slab is clean, smooth, and most importantly COMPLETELY DRY, it's time to prime! After researching and reading and researching some more, I chose a primer that is rated for use with interior concrete. It's very important to use products that are made to play nice with concrete because just like a laminate floor needs its spacers to breath and expand and contract, concrete needs to be able to do the same. So if you decide to recreate this process, you don't have to use the brands of paint I used, or the colors, but I cannot stress the importance of the KIND of paints used in this tutorial. 

We chose a tintable Multi-Surface Primer and Sealer for Interior/Exteriors from Behr. 

The paint counter people tinted the base light brown for us. We didn't choose a color, but we did tell them we were going to paint the floor dark brown, and they tinted the base as much as they could. It ended up being a medium tan shade. We applied this to the floor with high density 3/4 nap rollers. 

We ended up applying two coats of the primer to reach opacity over the slab.

One coat of the sealer/primer

Two coats of sealer/primer

We allowed the sealer/primer to dry for 36 hrs before moving on to the next step. It's very important to make sure that the primer is well set before you continue. It should also be noted with this product, that once it's dry, it still remains slightly tacky. This is normal, and occurs so that the primer will form a good bond with whatever is applied on top of it. 

The next step is the most tedious of this project, but will reap so many rewards. In this phase, you'll create "planks" all along the floor using paint, a trim brush, the template of your choice, and a wood graining tool. I would also highly recommend investing in either carpeters knee pads or use some interlocking workout mats like I did to cushion your joints while working on the concrete. I would also recommend mapping out a plan for the direction you want to work in, so you don't literally paint yourself into a corner.

We used the Behr Interior/Exterior Masonry, Stucco and Brick paint in Satin. We had it tinted to the Behr shade Dark Truffle. This provides a good contrast to the primer. Again, you don't have to use this brand of paint, but make sure that whatever you use is rated for use with masonry/concrete. 

You'll want to plot out the first row of your "planks" staggered the way you would do when laying down laminate flooring. I chose to use a three length staggered flooring pattern. 

I also used this funky neon yellow piece of plexi as my guide ruler for making my planks!

 You could use a yard stick, painters tape, or even have a piece of plexi cut at your local hardware store to the width and length you want your planks. The first row I did every plank, to set the pattern for the rest of the floor. After that, I started back on the other end mapping out full length planks, alternating rows, and allowing them to dry before going back to the end and completing the next row.

Okay, so that's the bones of how you make planks, but here's the meat: the wood grain effect. I bought my wood grain tool for $7 at Lowes. It has a heart grain pad, and the edges of the pad have a wide grain pattern and a skinny grain pattern. 

I have a fairly large floor area to cover, so I opted to make 4 inch wide planks. No matter what size your planks are, the technique will be the same. You paint your plank area (one at a time, the paint must be wet for each one) with your trim brush so that you have a solid brown rectangle. I also liked to apply my paint in the direction the graining will go, along the length of the board, rather than shorter strokes along the width. Just enough paint to cover the primer evenly, because the goal here is to scrape a fair amount back off using the tool. Apply the pad of the tool to the top center of the rectangle, and use a drag and rock motion to create the knotty looking heart grain of the plank. Then use the wider grain edge pattern to pull down on either side of the heart grain to complete the plank. It seems intimidating at first but I found this video very helpful for showing how to achieve the effect:

http://youtu.be/m0qO2pLWkho

Once you become comfortable with the technique, it's quite easy to get into a rhythm of painting and graining your planks. This process took me a few weekends to complete, because I was doing it solo and I have a very "helpful" toddler in my care. Also, with it being our main living area, I had to really pick my times to get some solid progress achieved. These layers tend to dry pretty quickly, because they are thin. I did wait a full 12 hours after the last planks were complete before starting the next step, just to be safe. Also, if like me, you have a helpful toddler, you might have to do another light mopping before you start the next step because she spilled a cup of sweet tea in the middle of the floor. If you encounter this sort of thing, I would say use a light hand to clean, since these paints aren't sealed, and could peel away from the concrete. 

The next step is staining. This step brings the graining you worked so hard on to life, giving the floor one uniform wood tone. We chose to use Minwax stain in Dark Walnut (2716) because we like darker woods with no red tones, but at this stage you could choose whatever stain you like best. I applied the stain with a standard synthetic bristle paint brush, once again applying with the grain in long strokes, for a thin coat of the product over the whole floor.

It's important to note that the stain will not completely dry, and that is okay. Also, I only applied one layer of stain to my project, so I would not recommend multiple coats. We did open up the windows for this step and leave them open overnight, because unfortunately, stain smells yucky, and there just isn't much you can do about that. We allowed our stain to dry for 24hrs before moving on to the final step. (Yep, it's almost over!)

Its Time To Seal Your Floor!

It's very important to use a water based polyurethane floor sealer for this project that is okay to use over oil based products. Any other kind of sealer will wear down or not seal properly, destroying all your hard work! We chose a Minwax brand of poly in a satin finish, but there are several brands on the market that have water based polyurethanes that will work. Just remember to make sure it says it's okay to use with oil based products, because wood stain is oil based. We bought a cheap package of black socks, and wore double socks while walking on the stained floor to seal it. We followed the directions on our can, and applied a thin coat to the entire floor using a wide synthetic bristle paint brush that we taped to our painters pole. We allowed each coat to dry for 2 hrs. before applying the next. 

We applied 4 coats of poly to our floor over the course of one day. We went out for lunch, came back and added a coat, went to a movie, came back and added a coat. One of the less stressful steps of this project for sure! 

The directions said that the floors are done after a 24 hr cure time, but we decided to give it 36 since we will be putting heavy couches and all that on it. 

And here's our finished product:

This floor turned out so much better than I anticipated, and has made me so much happier with my living room. The floor will clean up the same way any tile floor would, and should hold up well to our family foot traffic. The great thing about the poly is, I can touch it up from time to time if I need or want to! I'll try to update this post in 6 months or so with how it's holding up. 

If you have any questions about this process, please feel free to ask below! Or if you decide to try this look, I'd love to see your before and after photos. Thanks for stopping by the Five Year Flip House, and I hope you visit again soon.