Concrete floors are common in homes and the majority of people cover these floors with tile, carpet, or laminate flooring. These are excellent floor choices, but you can actually do many more things to make concrete floor beautiful, and appealing, and some of these processes are far less expensive than the alternatives.
You can buy special chemicals and create an acid wash on your concrete floors. The acid wash creates some of the most beautiful floor finishes that you have ever seen, and your floor will be long-lasting, sturdy, and unique. It takes specialized chemicals and practices to do these floors, but homeowners can do them without the help of a professional.
Have you consider a paper bag floor covering? You can take brown paper bags, the kind like you get at the grocery store, and tear the bags into pieces. You want the torn edge look. You will dampen the concrete slightly so the pieces of bag will stay in place when you put them on the floor. Lay the bags out so that your floor is covered, and you need to overlap the pieces, then apply a sealant on top of the bags. The sealant will hold the bags in place and will create a protective barrier so that you can mop, sweep, and walk on the floor without fear of damages. You need to apply several coats of the sealant and you have to allow each coat to dry completely before you put on another one.
You can use sheets of newspaper, or the funny papers, or drawings your children have done and apply them in the same way that you apply the paper bags to the floor. For a unique touch you could paint the floor a beautiful blue-green color and then apply pictures of coral reefs, starfish, and other aquatic life you might see on the ocean floor. With plenty of sealant the result would be a floor that looked like you would get wet walking on it. There are endless possibilities with this type of floor application.
Professional flooring workers suggest taking a circular saw and cutting grooves into the concrete to make it appear like tile. You then paint the entire surface and paint the grooves a different color to create the look of grout. You finish this with a clear sealant to protect the painted finish. You can also create a tile look by painting the entire floor one color, and after it dries use a ruler and draw the “grout” lines in place. You will then take the color of paint that you want the grout line to be and a small paint brush and paint the lines. Finish the floor with a clear sealer to protect the paint.
These options are excellent ways to create unique floors and to allow your home décor to be unique. You will periodically need to apply another coat of the clear sealant to keep the floor looking beautiful for years to come.
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