Home Improvement: Staining Concrete

We've all been there. You're painting your garage door or your porch ceiling and you drip paint on your concrete. This is when you learn that if you don't get to it immediately with the hose and scrub brush, your concrete has a permanent stain. This is plain old latex house paint we are talking about, so why do we spend oodles of money on fancy concrete stains? This is a good question. I've used a lot of stains over the years. Acid stains bring out the natural imperfections of concrete to create a stone look, but they are nasty to work with. Behr makes a solid color stain I like, but it takes ages to dry here in the sticky South. Valspar makes a floor and patio paint that I won't even bother to complain about. So let's talk about the cheap way to stain unsealed concrete, latex house paint mixed with water. It's by far my favorite way to go. You can get a solid color, a marble finish with a poured technique or a granite finish with a sprayed on or flicked on technique (use old spray bottles or cheap paint brushes), and you can get any color you want. Here's how you do it:

My concrete was outside and dirty, so I started by pouring half a gallon of bleach on it and spreading it around with my handy scrub brush. After half an hour, I rinsed it thoroughly with the garden hose. Protect any surrounding plants with old towels.

My concrete had dried over night so I misted it with the garden sprayer. I wanted it damp but with no standing water. Then I mixed 80% water/20% paint in some old juice jugs. I poured this on randomly and let the colors bleed into one another. The slope of the concrete did a lot of the work for me. 

After the poured "stain" had dried, I splattered it with some black and brown using an old brush to create a more blended look. 

Since I was just practicing techniques before a bigger project, I used leftover paint I had from around the house: black, white, gray, and a milk chocolate brown. If this were indoors, I would let it dry over night and then seal it with a water based poly for easy clean up and a smoother finish. Outdoors, I don't want a slick surface, so I'll just leave it. I did something similar on my front porch over 2 years ago and it still looks as good as the day it was done, even after pressure washing. I plan to do the bedroom floors in one of our rentals at a future date. Finished concrete is bullet proof and budget proof, so something to keep in mind for interior and exterior purposes.