Hill Country Homebody: Concrete Floor Progress

Hi there. As you can imagine there has been a lot going on behind the scenes since my last post about our construction. There are the smallest yet time consuming little decisions that are being made on an almost daily basis. If I listed them out you would probably think...What's the big deal? It's just the whole balancing life along with those decisions on tile and grout color, fans and lights, tile patterns and budgets that makes it a bit more challenging. I've decided instead of feeling like I need a whole "post" about our progress and how we make decisions to do what we do I'm going to occasionally do a quick update with where we are with some pictures. I already do this on my facebook page to quickly keep friends and family up to date on the progress. I have just found it to be a bit too much to find to right up a post as things are happening. As stressful as the process has been we do want to remember SOME of it though so this will help me preserve the memories while not feeling overwhelmed about needing to write up a blog post;)

Did you see this post about us trying to decide which direction to go with our concrete floors?

Well we decided to go with the richness of a dark brown concrete stain. Our entryway shows just how dark it can look in some areas.

We came about this color after searching for dark brown concrete floors online. This one actually has lines sawn into the concrete slab to make it look like wood! How cool is that?

Source: stainandstamp.com via Jessica@ Hill Country Homebody on Pinterest

There was also this picture that helped seal the deal. It just gave a bigger better representation of the variation in color.

Source: stainandstamp.com

Not all concrete is the same and you don't really know what your going to get until you do a sample. The concrete staining guy did this sample for us in little man's room. I'm not sure why he did the other colors along with it? The one on the top right is also Kemiko Black but it didn't have a wax finish like the one right under it and it was surprisingly lighter.

This is an important thing to note. Apparently it's more expensive to do the wax finish instead of a rolled on (I can't think of the word for it) protection. This makes since but if your contractor has concrete floors quoted for you you need to know if they had them quoted as waxed or not. It cost us $1100 to have the darker deeper look. :( A side note: if you are thinking about building...the whole "it's gonna cost more" thing will happen. ALOT! It is sometimes because you want something better or different but sometimes it is due to mistakes or things being unclear.

We went with the color called none other than Black by a company named Kemiko. To us it represented the warmth that a rustic wood floor would bring into the house without having the budget for a rustic wood floor. We went for a low sheen in hopes that it will be a little easier to keep it looking clean and we just like the look better than high gloss. Note: I said "looking clean".

I think this picture of our living area is the best representation of the color on our concrete.

Here is how it was looking in the master bath. You can see how the cracks are really pronounced. I don't mind the cracks at all but the gray color around me really bothered me at first. Well low and behold it actually wipes away!