Staining a Basement Floor

LESLIE: Paul in New York needs some help finishing a basement floor. Tell us about the project.

PAUL: I’m finishing my basement and I wanted to know if I should stain my concrete floor first and then polish or polish and then stain.

LESLIE: I feel like if you polish it, you’re going to be putting a sort of resistance zone, if you will, between the floor itself – which is very porous – and the stain that you want to apply that you want to be absorbed into the concrete, rather than just sit on top; otherwise, it’s going to flake off.

Now, there are several different things you can do. There are epoxy coatings, which are like a paint that would go on a concrete but sort of a curing system that will be very, very durable but more like a solid color.

Then there’s acid staining. QUIKRETE makes one that’s interior or exterior. It comes in four different colors, which is a very easy process to follow. If you do some research online, you can find different acid-staining kits that, you know, depending on how you mix it and what additives you put in, you can get a variety of colors and you can apply in a whole host of ways to make something that looks like marbling, full patterns.

I mean, there are a lot of options out there but once you get what you want it to look like, then I would seal it and polish it and get it finished.

PAUL: Awesome. Thank you very much.

LESLIE: Good luck.

TOM: You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.