DAY FIVE - THURSDAY

I went to Benjamin Moore Paints and bought the material we will need.

We determined that for a 1600 square foot job, we would need:

2 gallons of Neutra Clean for steps 1 and 3
5 gallons of Cola acid stain for step 2 (dilute to 50% and stain twice)
8 gallons of gloss sealer II for step 4
3 gallons of easy shine mop and go (to protect the sealer from kids, furniture, dogs, etc)
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18 gallons = $706 incl tax.

(none of the Kemiko products can be exchanged or returned, even if unopened)

Now to continue the work of scraping, buffing, vacuuming and mopping!!!

Tanya

DAY FOUR - WEDNESDAY

First we removed carpet and pad and tack strips, then we continued work on the scraping in the 3 bedrooms. When Chuck came home he rented a floor buffer again and buffed in the 2 smaller rooms. I go in behind and wet vac, followed by mopping with water.

I took some pics of where we are so far.

Will post soon!

Tanya

DAY THREE - SUNDAY

So we hired the two guys to help again. They will scrape and strip on the edges of each room/closet/etc. while Chuck uses the floor buffer and I use the wet vac and mop behind him.

The key to buffing is LOTS OF SOAPY WATER!!! We also started adding TSP (tri-sodium-phosphate) to the soapy water. You can buy this at Home Depot.

We found that the buffer couldn't really get all the way to edges, so the guys hand scraped and scrubbed the edges, Chuck buffed the centers and I was on cleaning detail.

After 3 days of hard work, we had the kitchen, living, dining, and hallway ready. We still have to work on the two bathrooms and empty the 3 bedrooms so we can do them.

Now we need moving boxes.

Night! (exhausted)

T

DAY TWO - SATURDAY

1. So we hired two workers to work with us on the scraping!

2. We used a JASCO Premium Paint and Epoxy Remover, it is in a gel solution. You paint it on, let it sit 5 minutes, then scrape it off. It's a miracle worker. (most important is it's water rinsable)

Now that we had help, we started in the other rooms. Living, dining and kitchen.
Scrape and scrub! Elbow grease! We felt overwhelmed till we hired day help, we were talking back and forth about just using tile, but we persevered! Once we had the paint remove, things started looking up. We could see areas of beautiful concrete, very nice smooth floors under all the crud! This is when life started to seem bearable, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Then it started bugging me that even the scrubbing takes so long. I told the guys to stick to the borders/edges of the room, but that I wanted to look into renting a floor buffer! A new tool!

Went to Home Depot and rented a floor buffer! We came home and tried it out! It's a MIRACLE worker, now you can really see the beauty of the natural concrete once it's cleaned! We played for about and hour then went to bed EXHAUSTED!!!

T

DIY: How to go from carpet and linoleum to BEAUTIFUL stained concrete floors!!!!!

I am going to try to journal about going from rags to riches with my floors!!! We have 6 kids and 4 dogs and carpet and linoleum just can hold up to that beating, trust me!!! Well NO more shampooing carpets, we are done with that! Out with the old and in with the new!!!

DAY ONE - Friday

STEP ONE:

Emptying the house. This is the hard part, moving out of a house you live in. We moved the dining room first, then the kitchen, then most of the living room. We also did the master bathroom and closets, then the hallway and 2nd bathroom. We left the 3 bedrooms since that was going to require KID HELP! Ugh!

STEP TWO:

We thought we would start in a room that had BOTH carpet and linoleum, just to see what our floors look like under both. Oh, it was horrible!!! The painters oversprayed everything!!! I don't know how we'll ever get all this paint off the concrete!!! Help!!! Under the linoleum is a layer of glue or mud or half the thickness of the sheet of linoleum. (what is this crap?) Once you pull up all the flooring (carpet, pad, and linoleum) then we had carpet tack strips to remove. We used a small pry bar and a hammer. Note: when the nails come out of the concrete, they pull up some of the concrete, too, so you get little holes or gouges in the concrete. Now we have to figure out how to fix those, too! You also have to pull up the quarterround, over all the linoleum BEFORE you try to pull up the linoleum. We used a razor knife on the caulk lines to separate the quarter round from the baseboards.

STEP THREE:

Soak the floor in a soapy (dishwater) solution. Then use scrapers to peel up the paint and junk under linoleum. (putty knives, joint knives for sheetrocking, etc) The soapy water soaks into the surface of the concrete and makes it MUCH easier to scrape up. Get down to as smooth and clean a surface as you can. Use a wet vac to suck up the water. (way easier than a mop) We got down to a smooth surface, but it still had paint everywhere. You can scrape the paint, but it takes LOTS of elbow grease, so we decided there must be an easier way.

1. hire help
2. find out what kind of "chemicals" can help you accomplish the job. (beware of any type of acid cleaners, they will ruin the cement for staining)

Went to bed a little discouraged and exhausted!

T