I am buying a home and would like to 'dress up' the back patio area, but don't want to spend a fortune on tile for outdoors...was thinking about staining the front porch and back patio...but I don't know what this would entail...any help? THANKS!
my brother does concrete for a living and its a pretty messy process. (he does high quality stamping and coloring) i dont recommend doing it yourself. if you make one mistake you will have to break the whole thing up and it just turns into more work for you and more money...not a good idea. leave it to the professionals :o)
Instead of stain look into surface coats. White Cap is a high end contractor supply store and they have some excellent products.
concrete is best colored when it is mixed since your patio is already cured it probably wouldn't give you good results to try and stain it now. there are products on the market but they don't color evenly and can be blotchy because they don't absorb evenly into the concrete. you could try masonry paint but it will wear and you'll be repainting every few years good luck
My bedroom floor is stained concrete. We ripped up the carpet in there, the living room and the front office/living area when we moved into our house. I also stained the back patio to look like terra cotta tiles. I loved my bedroom floor so much that even though we eventually put flooring down in the rest of the house I refuse to even consider it. The color I got at home depot is a sheer golden sun, we used an all purpose sprayer (the 2 gallon kind for bug spray) and then just layered it over the floor. Make sure the floor is clean or you will have a nightmare with dust or dirt residue. Then after you spray it, seal it with a clear cement sealer. You can do patterns, or a solid color, or make it look like stone. I have some very small rugs right by the bed on either side for warmth, but the staining effect looks great!
I bought a concrete stain at Lowe's and you just paint it on and it soaks in. I used a Terra cot ta color. It is such an easy update for a patio or porch.
