The basement floor is in limbo....

while we figure out what to do with it.

I lightly stained over the acid stain to give it a marble look and cover the spots that were not stained from the ferrous sulfate.

It went bad when I put the wet look sealer. The sealer went on terribly so I tried to wash it off before it dried, Big Mistake.

At this point its either sand and re stain with the acrylic paint/stain and find a less slippery easier to apply sealer or put laminate or vinyl down.


This is the floor after spraying 3 coats of Ferrous Sulfate (Iron Sulfate Fertilizer / Hi Yield Copperas). I love the look unfortunately where my husband sealed cracks he used something that couldn't be stained.





So I lightly sprayed the brown over the acid stain which looked good until the sealer fiasco. My blog is becoming a what not to do.

The saga of my basement floor.

This may be an easy diy project for some people but not me.

Ok so far...

1.DH stained the laundry room. (acrylic behr stain chicory)

2.I stripped off the stain, etched, and cleaned the floor.

3.I searched hi and low for Hi Yield Copperas (Iron Sulfate) $3.99 to acid stain my floors. I sprayed the floors 3 times. I loved the results but where my hubby touched up the cracks the iron sulfate wouldn't take. So beautiful brown floors with lots of grey spots.

4. I got some lovely brown stain from lowes and very lightly sprayed the floor so the acid stain would show through. I did heavily cover the grey areas.

5. Here's the part where this project goes down the tubes and I end up in tears. I put the Behr Wet look sealer(are we sensing a trend here with Behr products)on with a garden sprayer. It goes on real milky. I go upstairs because it seemed really milky so I google it. It seems if you put it on to heavy it will puddle and stay milky. I panic and went downstairs and it was drying fast, puddling in many areas, and very milky. So I try to wash it off with soapy hot water and proceed to ruin all the work I have done. This is entirely my own fault. But I hate this project. I felt under pressure because my washer and dryer have been unhooked for too long.

What is sad is I could have hired someone to do it and it would have been better for me. I am jealous of all the people who have done this without any issues.

I have no taken any pictures of the mess it dryed ok but took some stain off and looks blotchy. It may be able to be saved. We'll see.

Basement Floor gone wrong...

Ok I have not redone the floor yet but when we put the chickory stain by Behr it was way darker than the picture in the brochure. The guy had the nerve to tell me not to go by those pictures. I called the 800 number on the can and the women said since I did not etch and use bonding primer that is why it came out so dark.

Well I had one can of Chicory left, so off to Home Depot I went. I asked how I could make the color lighter. I was told I could mix a lighter color (Saltillo Tile) with the darker color. So he recommends this lighter color that he happens to have for $5 gallon. I stupidly buy it and he throws in another of the same. I get home and mix it with the chicory. It ends up being a milky pink. So I call Home Depot. This rude girl tells me since I took it upon myself to mix them at home she can not try to tint it darker for me. So if I have to buy 3 new gallons of stain this cheap project will turn expensive. I call the main customer service number and get my money back.

I now have gone to Lowes and bought Quickrete Acid Etch Stain in Coffee. I am done with the acrylic stains on concrete. At least I was able to strip the chickory stain off in 1 day. I did now etch the concrete.


Here are pics of the chickory and the process of stripping it off.

Post about the basement floor coming soon.

My hands hurt so bad from working on this all weekend. I have pictures and lessons learned along the way to post soon.

I will say that I had to look online on how to disconnect the washer and someone posted that I need to turn the knobs counter clockwise to turn off the water. Well I am so mad at that person. When I disconnected the hose water went everywhere. I was quite upset and almost gave up.

So I will post more tomorrow.

Trip to NY

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We drove William to NY to see his grandparents. It was definitely interesting driving with the two dogs. How cute are they sleeping in the backseat.





The puppy wanted to drive.

Picture of the Verrazano Bridge as we drive over it.

I hate people who cut in toll both lines...Don't you?




I also Hate big rigs that drive too fast and switch lanes alot....





It was a long holiday drive. We drove on 4th of July weekend. I miss William bigtime. He will be home soon and hopefully all the painting is done before he gets back.

Our concrete floors are so bare and sticky!

Here is the basement floor after removing the carpet tiles, vinyl tiles & regular tiles.


Here is our fireplace we removed the tile in front of it because they were cracked and stained (previous owner never sealed the tile).

Hubby is scraping off the tile adhesive.


Here is the sticky orangey glue film that was underneath the tile in the laundry room. We will be sanding this today. This is the most labor intensive part, so we are very close to beautiful floors!!!!!

Staining Concrete

Ok so we can't afford new floors and we have these terrible carpet tiles and ugly tile in our basement laundry/craft room & family room. Plus we never attached the base cabinets and countertops because we were waiting to do the floors.

Last year our ceiling collapsed on my husband. So we have a new ceiling. I asked Hubby to remove the tile and carpet squares so I can stain the concrete. So off to Lowes we went to get the stain. I will post pictures of his progress.

Pictures from last year before the work stopped!











Here are the inspiration pictures.