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I am mom to an 18 year old boy and identical twin 9 year old boys. I am the wife of a wonderful man. I have had celiac disease for 18 years, and love to share recipes I find or create!

May 26, 2014

Painting concrete floors!

I am getting good at painting our cement floors! We got very grossed out by our nasty old carpets, so we ripped the carpeting out room by room and painted the cement slab floors! We have done every room downstairs but one (too many fish tanks to move!) and we are so pleased with how they look, and they are actually not showing any wear!

We cut the carpet into 1ft wide strips, to fit in trash bags for garbage day. There was so much disgusting... well dust and grime under our carpet pads, once we pulled one up we knew we had to do them all downstairs. The trick to removing that nasty white carpet glue off the floor - pour boiling water on it and scrub a little with a metal chore boy. I had to scrape a few spots, but overall it came right off! We painted the floors using Glidden porch and floor paint and sponged on behr premium plus ultra. We sealed the first floor with untinted Glidden porch and floor paint, but it showed scuffs almost immediately so we went back over it with Behr low luster sealant and used that for the rest of the floors. I will warn you it's a bit slippery for the first few weeks it's on, but once you walk on it a bit it becomes "normal floor" again. We love the sealant because it's so durable! It has stood up to our dog, three cats, and three boys with their hot wheels, etc. all over it - without so much as a mark yet!

To get the tile grout look, we used 1/4 inch quilting tape from Walmart! To make the transition from our tiled main area to the cement, we found a nice wooden door jam trim at Home Depot, and glued it down with caulk and painted it to match the floors. It does take some measuring and remeasuring to get good lines on the floor, but wow are the results worth it! We have put down a few area rugs, just because, but the tile floors are MUCH colder in the winter than our painted concrete floors are, I was shocked!!!

Here are some photos :) Post in comments if you have any questions!