To be continued . . .

When we purchased our little home in 2006, my heart was set on one thing – stained concrete. I love the aesthetic of stained concrete – industrial & minimal yet full of warmth & character. Every stained concrete floor is one-of-a-kind. So, we (meaning Chris) ripped out carpet, pulled up linoleum and broke-up tile to prepare the way for concrete magic. After five days of prepping, skimming, staining & sealing, this was the end result. Btw – a contractor worked the magic. I mean, look at that color. My heart skipped a beat!



After six years of wear and tear, however, our floor was beginning to show its age. There was peeling, crazing, divots and a cloudy appearance under our sealer. Apparently, this is often the result when you stain a cement overlay instead of the original concrete foundation. It’s fragile.

We had to face the fact our floor needed repaired & it was going to be (deep breath) messy & smelly. Two things an OCD, Type A gal doesn’t handle very well. The predicted two-and-a-half day repair job ended up taking five days and the end result was a floor that looked more aged & devastated then our original. To add to the sadness, the new stain covering the original stain was much, much too dark. It looked like we had an oil spill in our dining room!

BEFORE

AFTER

After four layers of sealer (in the hopes the newly surfaced cracks & crazing would dissipate), the contractor realized he would need to redo the floor and start from scratch. There was a collective sigh in the room (both of relief & then of dread). If the repair job was messy & smelly – a total redo (meaning buffing & removing cement overlays as well as adding a new one) was going to be messy & smelly on steroids. What we intentioned on being a minor house project had now become a major one. Due to the toxicity of the fumes, you can’t be in your home during these repairs (for good reason). So, we’ll be exiled from our home at least another week and probably much longer since we re-entered our home this go-around a bit prematurely (i.e. the fumes were crazy strong). After three days, we still have the windows open, fans blowing, candles burning & five wallflowers in operation. I forgot how the sealer invades everything – your food, your clothing, your lungs!! I hope we haven’t lost too many brain cells over the weekend. I have done my best to clean-up the dust but I know it will only get worse until the job is done. Here was the temp inside/outside our home on Saturday. Let’s just say – brrrrrrr. And, it’s supposed to snow today. Better bust out the Under Armor.


We’ll see what happens with the redo and when it will actually take place (hopefully this week). My dad keeps asking me if I am interested in tiling our floors. I just laugh and think to myself, “I’ve always been high maintenance. Are we really surprised the floors I like would be any different!?” I mean, who wouldn’t upset their lives and pocketbooks for 178 square feet of concrete!? Thinking back, my niece asked me the first time she saw our new floor, “When will you guys be able to fix this floor? Isn’t this just like the sidewalk?” Um, when you put it that way . . . yes, we do seem to be sacrificing a lot for floors that are essentially stained sidewalks, but that’s how we roll, baby. That’s how we roll.

Last week’s project is “to be continued.” We are hoping it all has a “happy ending.”