How To Paint Concrete Floors

I have always wondered what it would be like to rip up my dirty carpet and live with concrete floors.  In this post, learn how to paint concrete floors and try this yourself.

We have been in our house for about seven years and this is the first change we have made to the master bedroom.  It seems like that is always the last room to get any attention.  The entire room was the same color, beige, and so was our furniture.  The lack of contrast really drove me crazy.  A person can only take so much beige.  I came up with a plan to get my contrast by painting black crown molding which you can see here.  Next, I had to deal with the floor.

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In addition to the ceiling, walls, and furniture all being the same color, the floor was also beige carpet.  With four dogs tracking in mud and having accidents, it looked terrible and we talked often about tearing it out.

I knew just replacing the carpet with more carpet would not solve the problem, so I shopped around and got a couple of quotes for hardwood floors.   I really wanted hardwood floors, but the whole process of putting them down and not being able to walk on them for an extended period of time sounded like something I couldn’t manage.  Not to mention hardwood floors are expensive.

I joked and threatened about how a concrete slab would be better – anything would be better than that carpet.  Finally, I booked my painter to scrape the popcorn ceiling and paint the walls and the crown molding.  While the room was empty, we decided we would do it – we’d rip up that nasty carpet.

CONCRETE FLOORS: WHAT TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU DIVE IN

Here’s what to expect if you pull up carpet and decide to live with a concrete floor.

1. It’s more work than you think it’s going to be.  While it only took us one day to pull up the carpet, it was pretty hard work.
2. Your slab might not be pretty and you might have to paint it instead of just sealing it or staining it.  My plan was just to seal the slab, so I was surprised to see green paint, cracks, and a patch job on our slab.  Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty.  We had to paint it.
3. It is slippery.  I have almost slipped on the floor going from the shower to the closet, so you will need rugs with non-slip pads.

HOW TO REMOVE YOUR OLD CARPET AND PAINT YOUR CONCRETE FLOORS

Here are the steps we followed:

STEP ONE:  PULL UP CARPET AND CARPET PAD

We pulled the carpet and pad up from one of the corners of the room.  We’d pull it back as far as we could and then cut it into strips with a box cutter.  We stacked it up in the room and then bagged it into trash bags and put it outside.  Our city will pick this type of thing up as long as it is in a manageable pile.

STEP TWO: SCRAPE & CLEAN UP GLUE

After we got rid of the carpet, we had to clean off the glue that was used under the pad.  I used a large scraper that I bought at Home Depot to scrape up the glue, and then I used a degreasing cleaner that I sprayed on the glue.  I bought acid, but didn’t use it because I was able to do a pretty descent job with the degreaser – spraying and scraping and spraying and scraping several times.  Toward the end, of course, I figured out that I could scrape harder by using my foot to put pressure on the scraper.

STEP THREE: REMOVE THE TACK STRIPS

My husband used a crow bar to pull up the tack strips while I was cleaning up the glue.  We put the broken tack strips in a box and carried them out to the curb.

STEP FOUR: VACUUM 

Then we vacuumed and swept and vacuumed and swept and dust mopped and mini-vaced.  It’s important that at this point your floor is dry and all that dirt and dust is gone.  After we had vacuumed a few times, I decided the vacuum wasn’t actually helping anymore which is why we got out the dust mop and hand held vacuum.

STEP FIVE: TAPE OFF BASEBOARDS

Next we taped off the baseboards, fireplace, and floor by the doorway with blue painters tape.

STEP SIX:  FILL IN THE HOLES

We used epoxy to fill in the holes left by the tack strips.  I decided to use epoxy instead of Quick Crete because you do not have to sand exopy and you can paint the surface sooner.  We used two Rustoleum epoxy kits I got from Home Depot.  With epoxy you have to work quickly and this was my first epoxy job, so my husband and I worked together.  We mixed up the expoxy on a piece of cardboard and we each had a putty knife that we used to fill and level the holes.  We did this after the kids were in bed and let it dry through the night.

STEP SEVEN: PAINT YOUR CONCRETE FLOORS

Then we painted the floor.  I bought Porch & Floor paint at Sherwin Williams.  Since I wasn’t planning on painting the floor, I didn’t have a color picked out.  So, the first color I picked didn’t really go with the wall color.  It was a color I had used in the past, but it looked too blue.  It was Online.  The second time around I went with Dovetail.  It was more of a greige, or warmer gray and looked better with my wall color.  So, we ended up with two coats of paint on the floor.  I might have been able to do two coats with one gallon if I hadn’t changed colors.

First, I used a brush and painted around the edges of the whole room.  Then, I just poured paint right on the floor and rolled it out with a roller with no nap.  There’s no need to put your paint in a tray for this job.

STEP EIGHT: SEAL THE CONCRETE FLOORS

Finally, I sealed the floor with Wet Look Sealer from Home Depot.  I did this twice with dry time in between.  I used less than one large bottle of sealer.  Once this was done, we closed the door on the bedroom and let it dry for 72 hours.  This was tough because all our bedroom furniture was in the living room.  I felt like the whole house was a wreck and I couldn’t wait to move back in to the bedroom.  When we finally moved our furniture back into the bedroom, we used small pieces of cardboard under the feet of all the furniture to protect our work.  Also, we did not put rugs on the floor at that point.

This whole project had us locked out of our bedroom for two weeks.  I had no idea and wasn’t planning on this process taking so long.  There is a lot of dry time in between your steps and once you have put all that work into something, you certainly don’t want to ruin it.  While it didn’t all turn out like I thought it would, I would do it again.  I’m still in the process of decorating, but anything is better than dirty beige carpet, right?

UPDATES

MASTER BEDROOM UPDATES

PAINTED CONCRETE FLOORS UPDATE – Find out my thoughts on this project four years later.

Shop How To Paint Concrete Floors Here

Porch & Floor Enamel – Sherwin-Williams

BEHR PREMIUM 1 gal. Wet Look Sealer 98501

Rust-Oleum 24 oz. Concrete Patch and Repair Kit 301012

Floor Scrapers – Flooring Tools – The Home Depot

Paint Rollers – Paint Supplies – The Home Depot

Paint Scrapers – Paint Tools – The Home Depot

Krud Kutter

Painter’s Tape

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