How to lay flagstone on decomposed granite:

Oh my God there’s another project in the works.

It’s a two-parter: front porch strip and stain and flagstone walkway installation.

Two days ago, I started the flagstone pathway from the sidewalk to our front door portion of the project.  I might have put the proverbial cart in front of the horse by doing this prior to the patio concrete staining portion but there might be a trace of method to my madness.  Flagstone doesn’t typically come in a huge variety of colors, and the colors you do get can vary by palette.  So I figured that it would be best to lay the path first, which I am doing on a base of decomposed granite, and then after that is done, I will strip and stain the front porch.  After the pathway is on, I can have a better idea of what color direction I’d like to go in…. browner, blacker, lighter, darker, you get the idea.  Kind of like icing on a cake.  The jewelry for an outfit.  I digress.  

Where I did make an error in execution was to not go ahead and strip the horrible orange concrete stain (aka paint… read a few posts down to get some history here if you’re so inclined) but here’s a picture if you want to gross yourself out.

Orange Concrete Stain

I should have stripped it because now I’ll have to work around the flagstone when I stain unless I want to lay stone all the way to the porch and leave that…. I don’t know yet.  But yes, I will be using Soycrete again, as I have a ton left over from the big kitchen project I did earlier this year.

And here’s a photo of what’s been done so far: 

Outlined and Cut Path

On my next post, I’ll detail step-by-step how to make a flagstone pathway or sidewalk without using concrete to lay it in.  It’s so easy!!  There’s no need to hire someone to do this.  The only tricky part is getting the supplies to your house.  Luckily, I have access to a man and a pickup.  But I imagine that most stone yards deliver.  Some of the actual stone will be heavy too, but I’ll let you know how bad that will be when I get there.  :)

Thanks for being patient with me during the summer months.

-karin

LIAR!

Well, that’s the trouble with putting it in writing.  

I should know better than commit to an outside project when every day has reached the upper nineties and I don’t like hot weather.  At.  All.

But I swear to all 4 of you who may give a darn, I will get that front concrete done soon.  This hell weather’s gotta subside sometime, right?  And if not, I’m putting on my big girl panties and dealing with it – so I don’t have to rename this blog Fair Weather  doityourselfHER.

Also – I’m gearing up for a few other projects that I’ll go ahead and commit to in writing.  

1)  A flagstone pathway from the sidewalk to our front door.  This will be a joint project with Hubby.

2)  Putting my thinking hat on for a plan for our backyard, which will include building a sizable fire-pit. 

Pray for me people, I need some gumption.  And yes, margaritas.  Frozen, please.

Oh My Lawd

Was my last entry really in May?  What the heck?

I haven’t done any home improvement projects since my last post, which I’ll admit, is sad for someone who writes a blog about such things.  Well… let’s see.  I’ve been out of town several times, broke some toes, spent time working on a used camper we recently bought, and have I mentioned it’s been H-O-T here??? 

But I’m about to start on a new project later this week or early next week.  I’m going to strip and stain the front patio/porch.  Right now, it looks just like my old countertops did – except orange.  Well, technically, it’s a terra cotta color.  But yuck.  This guy sure could pick colors. 

I’ll be posting new pictures and finding out how my SoyCrete leftovers do on this outside flooring project.

And it may be too hot for wine… margaritas go with outdoor work, don’t they?

Briwax on a Pine Cabinet in the Bathroom

We had been out of town for three of the last four weekends, first to visit the in-laws, second to see Charlie Robison play at Gruene Hall in the Texas Hill Country and next, and last, to see my step-son, JD graduate from college!!  Yes, my husband is slightly older than me for any of you wondering how old I am.  ;0)   But that doesn’t mean I’m not proud!!  Let me take a second to congratulate JD on a most awesome accomplishment.  And to congratulate my husband for raising such a wonderful son.  JD is off to Chicago now to make the world a better place.

But anyhow, the projects had slowed down after the completion of the countertops and the out of town trips.  But I’m back and last week, I did a mini project worth mentioning.  First, some back story.  We live in a house that is best described as funky.  It’s got quirks that we love.  And those quirks keep me busy, so it all works out.  One of the oddities is that the master bathroom, a huge room for a house this size, was not built with any cabinetry or storage, with the exception of the under-sink storage, which is barely big enough to house a tiny trash can and a spare roll or two of toilet paper.  This leads us to two possibilities… add new cabinetry… or use furniture for storage.  

I opted for option 2, as it keeps the openness and flexibility of the large bathroom intact.  It’s also fun to explore the endless possibilities of furniture to use to solve various storage problems.  Several months ago, I bought an old (I don’t know how old) and huge Ethan Allen dresser that was half off at a second hand store.  The price, you wonder??  How about 7 dollars?! Granted the piece was in desperate need of new stain and hardware – but it was structurally sound.  I guarded this find as hubby went home to retrieve the old truck and we hauled it home.  I stripped the old orangey varnish (I’m guessing late 60’s) and then stained it with Briwax.  I didn’t put any sort of topcoat or polyurethane on it.  Just Briwax.  And I’m still kicking myself in the butt for not taking a single “before” picture, but here’s how it looks now.

 I can’t remember how much everything cost, but I imagine that the entire project cost under $100, for stripper, supplies, stain, and new hardware.  Not bad!!  Now, it houses various girly cosmetic supplies in the top drawers and t-shirts, socks, running clothes, etc, in the other drawers.  It’s perfect!

 

The other component in the bathroom storage picture was this homely piece, above.  And yes, for you nosey Nellies, if you look closely enough, you can see just about every product I use.  You can also see that it’s rather hum drum, with no finish, no depth, and some boring hardware that really combines to make the box of tampons the most interesting thing going on in this picture.  Here’s a closeup if you’re not asleep already:

So, I decided to make this pine cabinet (I think it’s made to store cute little china pieces and such, as it has that little plate holder line running through each shelf.)  But I found that when I added these great organizer baskets, it stored all of the bathroom stuff just perfectly.  But I wanted to it to match the other piece, so I needed to stain it and replace the hardware.

Project Players:

- Briwax in Dark Brown

- Rubber Gloves 

- Steel Wool to apply the stain with

- Screwdriver and new hardware

- Q-tips

 

I also put a few protective paper bags underneath so that I wouldn’t stain the floor.

First, remove the hardware.  I kept the doors on and just stained all around the hinges, which were black.  And yes, I was kind of lazy – but really, I don’t think I would have been any better off taking the doors off.

Then I just started staining.  Work the wax or stain into the wood.  I ended up applying it with an old sock because the steel wool was kind of disintegrating on me.  Here’s a picture of the unstained and stained areas next to each other.

And again:

I wanted to show you this because you’re probably thinking “that’s not much variation…” Which is exactly what I was thinking. But wait till you see the later pictures.  I suppose the color deepened.

I used Q-tips to apply the stain in the corners of the inside shelf area – see below, how the stain just won’t reach?

Again, not sound repetitive – but just work the stain in.  This pine was naked and untreated so it seemed pretty thirsty.  The Briwax dried quickly and then I just buffed it out a little with a different sock, installed the new hardware and here’s how it looked:

See how the color is so much richer?  It doesn’t look nearly as plain or as cheap anymore.  I know that it’s a little hard to capture just how much better it looks, but trust me – it’s a tremendous difference. 

 And one last closeup:

Now, the only thing I may do is look into painting the glass with a semi-transparent paint made for glass.  I think I saw something on a show once where they used a paint that kind of frosted the glass.  I’m always giving people “the tour” and end up feeling like maybe they don’t need to know what brand of sunless tanner I use.  I’ll let you know what I end up doing.  If anyone has any ideas of what to do with the glass doors, if anything, let me know.

And here’s what was interesting… after using green (soy-based) products in the kitchen, I was just floored by the strong smell of the Briwax.  *(Which I never thought was all too bad in the past.)  But it goes to show just how little fumes the green products contain.

My next project??

Re-doing this entertainment center.  I think I’m one of millions of Americans who owns this exact piece to house their television.  I LOVE it because we can shut it and not have to look at the huge black tv when we’re not watching it.  A big plus for a tiny room.  And I would love to get some suggestions from y’all.  Colors?  Techniques?  I see that this website has had over 500 hits, so someone must be reading!!  Let me know what you think…

 Hey – thanks for reading!!

SoyCrete Stain on My Countertops!

Well, as promised, here are some pictures of the final product!  ”Why did you take so long, Karin?”  you might be wondering.  To be honest, I’ve been waiting for the right light to take some quality photographs (another hobby of mine) to do justice to the effort I put into this project.  But if any of y’all live in Texas, you’d know that we’ve been getting some serious rain lately and it’s been cloudy almost every day.  My kitchen is probably the least naturally lit room in the house, so I thought I’d wait and see.  But this morning, it was really dark and rainy, and I knew I needed to get some pictures up – so I said What The Hell and turned on all the lights AND used flash.  So there you go.

Here is a picture of your first view of the countertops when you walk in.

Let’s step back in time and compare that with how it used to look….

 

Here is a picture of some variations in the concrete.  This is what the SoyCrete stain did such a nice job of bringing out.  (This was really hard to photograph, but I wanted to give you an idea of what it looks like close-up.)

Here’s another:

And here’s a picture of a small area of countertop where our microwave sits:

 

And here are two more from my favorite room, the bar – where our wine and liquor sits:

 

And just because I love you, here is a picture of Coco the WonderDog looking a bit peeved at me because she was 1) roused out of her comfy memory foam bed to pose for a picture on a dark, rainy morning and 2) I had not given her bribe of SNAUSAGE doggie treat just yet.

But look, doesn’t her brindle fur look a bit like the color I mixed?  Maybe she was my inspiration all along.  And if she ever wanted to hide from us, all she would have to do is lay really really still on the countertops.

So there you have it.

I had concrete countertops that were covered in opaque royal blue pain that was peeling and chipping off and I wanted a more durable, natural, and classy look.  I never started off thinking I would “Go Green” for this project, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  I mean really, it was great to work with products that didn’t give me a headache, burn my lungs, or make me fear that I might grow a nubbin arm out my forehead.

But time is the ultimate test.  I can say that I have cooked many a dinner since this project’s completion and there have been zero issues so far.  I’m really happy with the waterproof Eco-Tuff top coat too.

Now, if I can just get it to stop raining for a few days here, I can get started on my front patio.  I’ve got almost an entire gallon of stain and topcoat left, so watch out!  I may be staining some concrete near you!

Like Icing on a Concrete Cake

Project Difficulty:

Depending on what topcoat/sealer you use, application techniques may vary.  I used Eco-Tuff High Traffic Clear Coat AQ, their waterproof sealer, along with its mandatory primer, the Eco-Tuff 2 Part Epoxy Primer/Sealer kit.  Whew, that’s a mouthful.  Anyway – all products were easy to use!

Wine Intake:

None!  Have some champagne!!!  These are the final steps.

So, the stain’s been applied.  Now you’ve got to protect it.  No matter what kind of product you used, you have to apply a sealer or topcoat to keep the concrete counter tops from getting wet and beaten up by the daily abuse a (or at least my) kitchen takes.  

This particular project line required a 2 part epoxy primer primer/sealer application prior to the waterproof clear coat.

Project Players:

- Sealer, in this case, several products were used

-Foam or sponge Brush/Applicator (Can be bought in the paint section of any paint store.)  I used the 3 inch size and it worked perfectly.

- Plastic container with measurements (as shown in one of the pictures below)

- Latex gloves

- Maroon Scotch-Brite Pads

- Tack Cloth

For the clear primer and clear coat processes, I chose not to use any tape or plastic drop cloths.  After all, it is clear!!  And I was getting pretty excited to get this project finished.  Did I mention that I hadn’t cooked in the kitchen for over two weeks?  And we were just about sick of fast food and microwave popcorn!

Step one involved mixing equal portions of the 2 part primer.  EQUAL PORTIONS!!  The company rep advised me to only mix as much as I would use in an hour, since once mixed, the product will harden (as it is supposed to.)  So, I totally guessed and mixed small BUT EQUAL portions of each product, the primer and the sealer.  Don’t eyeball it, or guess.  Spend the extra few minutes measuring for accuracy, hence the measured container.  

I stirred really really well until primer and sealer were married until death do they part.  AWWWWWW.  Then I dipped the tip of the foam brush into the mixture, which was a milky white, and then applied it in an even and consistent coat, going down my countertop, from the wall towards me.  I repeated this for the length of the countertop, overlapping each row slightly in an attempt to blend the rows.  I can only describe the amount I used as not too thick, not too thin.  And I kept an eye out for any bubbles, which are apparently the kiss of death as far as this product goes.  I never saw any.

See how milky it looks?  

Well, that’s about it.  And as with all of these products so far, this one went a long way, and I was again impressed with how easy it was to use!!  Also, there was no offensive odor!  No fumes that made me want to run outside crying.  Wow, green products are great!  

I ended up mixing two small batches and I’d guess that the entire process took no more than two hours.  Afterwards, you have to wait until the product is dry (DRY! no longer tacky… run your finger across it to test.)  It was dry to a slight touch within a few hours, but I waited overnight to start the clear coat application.  

IMPORTANT!!  With this product, you have to wait until it dries, but no longer than 76 hours before you apply the final clear coat.  If you wait longer than 76 hours, the clear coat may not adhere to the sealer because after too much time, the sealer hardens too much.

Clear Coat Application:

Same tools, but you don’t have to use a measured container this time.

The next morning, I was so excited to begin THE FINAL STEP of this project!!  

The very first thing I did was to lightly buff the surface.  This is done for a few reasons, as far as I can tell.  First, it removes those little hard spots that seem to collect on surfaces… I don’t know how to describe them, but if you run your hand across the surface, you’ll feel them.  They’re no larger than a pin point, but they’re there.  Also, it gives the clear coat a good surface to adhere to.  I took the Maroon Scotch Brite pad (they are color-coded according to their grit) and just went on small circles all over the surfaces.  I didn’t press down with all my might, by any means, but I used enough pressure to see little swirl and buff marks in the surface.  I then lightly ran over the surface with a tack cloth, to remove ALL TRACES of debris.  This gives you a really good, clean surface to start your clear coat with.

I then filled my little container with clear coat and dipped a new foam brush in.  I applied it the same way as I described above, but noticed an immediate issue.  This clear coat was well, clear.  Who would have thought??  Anyway, I couldn’t really tell where I had applied it, so I devised a little technique to mark my place.  Basically, I just moved a screwdriver around on the counter top, marking the edge of my last row, so I would know where to start the next row.

Geez, not the most flattering picture of me… but you get the point.  Use whatever you have around t mark your place.  Then you won’t over apply or miss a spot.  And wow – look at those counter tops!!  See how they’re beginning to get that amazing stained concrete look?

I think the entire kitchen took an hour or so.  This product had the “strongest” (and I am using that word very relatively here) odor of all the products I had used so far, which barely registered on the bad smell scale.  

And then what?!  You guessed it!  More waiting.  You mean I can’t cook yet???  

The distributor advised me to let all the coats cure for approximately a week, especially since I live in a pretty humid climate.  It was oh. so. difficult. to not roll naked all over them in a fit of ecstasy!  I kid, I kid!  But seriously, I could tell that this was something I was going to be extremely proud of.  

Quick wrap up… we went out of town, so it wasn’t too much torture to wait an entire week.  When we returned, I did the very last thing, which was to use Scotch-Brite pad again to buff the surface.  See, it was a bit too shiny for my taste, which the rep had told me about.  He said that if you want a shiny “wet look” then don’t buff it out at the end… but if you want more of a satin or natural look, then buff it out slightly.  So, I again went in small circles, not too hard, until I had achieved the look I wanted.  And the technique worked beautifully.  It was a satin finish, just like I wanted.

So, there you have it… PROJECT ACCOMPLISHED!!  I have to take some good pictures of the final project so that you can see how awesome it looks.  We’ve had several people over since then and not to toot my own horn (well, maybe just a little) but they have been amazed at how good it all looks.  Frankly, I’m amazed too. Hubby said a contractor couldn’t have done any better.  Mom said “I knew it would look good, but WOW!”  I keep staring at it, thinking, “I did that?…. HEY!  I DID that!!  Hell yes!!”

I’ll be like Jerry Springer and supply my “final thoughts” and pictures on the next post.   

 

Staining Concrete – The Fun Starts

Project Difficulty:

This is the fun part, so I’m going to say it’s not very hard at all.  Especially if you’ve ever stained wood or painted a wall.  But even if you’ve never worked with stain or paint, I’d still say it would be pretty easy for you.

Wine Intake:

It depends on if you had to strip the concrete prior to staining it.  (See previous post.)  So, wine intake may be purely medicinal at this point, if you pulled any hair out in previous days.  But I’d recommend something light and white to offset the darkness of the stain.

So, as we last left off – the counter tops had been stripped and cleaned.  I had a few days off in between stripping and staining because my mother in law, HI LINDA! was here for the weekend and I really didn’t want to subject her to the rigors of counter top drama.  During her visit, they were just bare concrete – and ever the visionary, she could certainly see their potential.

Here’s the clean slate:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had decided to go with a soy-based product called SoyCrete.  And I’ll go into what led me to that decision a few posts down the road.  And to my 6 readers who have been anxiously awaiting this post, I assure you that the next entries won’t be nearly as tardy as this one.  You see, we went out of town, and since our return, I’ve felt a little under the weather.  Swine flu????  Oink oink.  No, but seriously – my mom’s school made the national news because they had two confirmed cases and they decided to shut it down for the week.  Mom said this gives her a chance to get her hanging baskets going… but I digress.

Anyway – so I ordered two gallons of SoyCrete, figuring that would be more than enough to take care of the kitchen counters and the front porch I plan to stain.  ***NEW PROJECT ALERT!!***  

The distributor’s website didn’t exactly have the best color samples on their website.  #mce_temp_url#  But I went ahead and chose Espresso and Black Granite, knowing that I wanted to achieve a look that was both brown and black.  Their helpful staff also told me that these two shades complimented each other quite nicely.  I went ahead and also ordered the most durable water-proof topcoat they had, as well as the primer that product required.  But for now, I’m going to stick to talking about the staining portion of the program. 

Project Players:

- SoyCrete soy-based concrete stain.  A gallon appears to be enough to do hundreds of projects.  I want to talk to them about offering quart sizes for the average doityourselfHER.  But they do offer color samples so you can blend or test til you’re satisfied.  But since I’m an impatient girl, I jumped right in and ordered two gallons.

- Regular kitchen sponge for application of stain.  I cut mine into pieces that were small enough to handle easily and fit into corners.

- Blue paint tape to protect the walls and tile.  But I decided to forgo the plastic drop cloths, based on a combination of my own level of carefulness and the distributor’s promise that any drips can be wiped up as long as you attend to them within 15 minutes or so.

- Margarine tub or small bowl to dab your sponge into.

- Latex gloves to keep my hands beautiful and feminine.  Ha.  I ruined that years ago.  But still, I better hold on to what I’ve got.

- I also bought a cinder block on which to test the colors.  The porosity was way off, but I did get to see a general representation of what they would look like.

Here is the product:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is what it looked like on the cinder block:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Based on what I saw – I knew that I would start with a one to one ratio of brown and black and then go from there.  I mixed exact portions of each and stirred really well.  I tested a small amount on a hidden corner of actual counter top and decided that it was still too brown for me.  Then I mixed a small batch of a one to two ratio of brown and black, and tested it next to the original test.  The difference wasn’t huge, but it was a little more black than brown, and I was happy with that.

I can say without hesitation that this is one of the best advantages of this product.  You can custom blend all day long, until you’re happy with what you’ve got.  You can also dilute the original with water color if it’s too dark for you.  But please remember that if you’re doing this, take note of what ratio you are experimenting with, so that when you find the perfect blend, you won’t forget how much of each color you just used.

I mixed a cup of black and half cup of brown together in an old and clean margarine tub.  Then I dipped my sponge in and took a deep breath.  I had hoped that this product would be easy to work with as well as sufficiently stain (not just coat) the concrete.  As soon as the sponge hit the concrete, I felt confidence in this product as well as myself.  Kevin, the angelic and patient man at the distributor for this product, had given me several tips on application.

Dip the sponge in the stain.  Start at a far corner and work in small circular motions, maybe 3 to 4 inches each.  Keep working the product in until it’s no longer sitting on top of the concrete.  And resist the urge to apply too much.  After just a few swirls of the wrist, I felt very comfortable going further.  He also recommended working each swirl into the next, so that you don’t end up with a patchy look.  See how it starts to blend:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep dipping and swirling until you’ve completely stained the surface you’re working on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I let the stain sit and dry and decided that I wanted to bring out a little warmth in certain areas, so I put just a little brown into a cup and applied it here and there, very lightly.

Tips:

-Pay attention to the porosity of the concrete.  There were areas that were very porous and needed more stain and a heavier hand to make sure there was proper saturation.  There were also areas that weren’t very porous at all.

-Other products may be different, but I have noticed that with stains, particularly this stain, a little really does go a long way.  

- Stain and paint are two different animals.  Remember that the beauty of concrete lies in its varied surfaces and that stain will bring those out, not hide them.

Happy Green Thought:

Did I mention that because this product is GREEN and SOY-BASED, there is virtually no offensive odor and you can use it inside without feeling like you’re harming vital organs?  

Look – I’m smelling it!  And you don’t see me passing out from toxic fumes, do you??  And no, I’m not about to drink it, even though it did kind of resemble coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 All in all, it took me just under an two hours to stain every counter top (and remember, we have plenty?) in our kitchen.  After having stripped for days and days prior, I felt like this had just been a little too easy.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that!!

So, I popped open a bottle and stood there, in amazement of how far these counters had come along.  I couldn’t wait until the next day so that I could apply the primer , and get one step closer to a finished project.

Here’s how it looked, dry and ready for the final steps of priming and top coating:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Even though the product seemed dry within an hour or so, I gave it overnight to sit and think about how awesome it is.  I wasn’t about to screw any of these steps up.

Go back and look at the previous post and tell me, this isn’t a HUGE step in the right direction.  

Ladies, we can do it!!!

Stripping Concrete 101

Project Difficulty: Moderately difficult – only in the amount of steps and time required, can be time consuming, but OH SO WORTH IT if you’re determined to get it done.

Wine Intake: Have several bottles on hand.  Preferably Merlot.

Okay – so my very first doityourselfHER post is a doozy… get ready.

Late last year, my husband and I bought a great 1920’s home that had recently been flipped. The aforementioned flipper attempted several projects to make this home more appealing to a certain type of buyer. He did several things well, several things marginally acceptable, and several things were total flops. One of his flops was his sorry attempt at “staining” the concrete countertops that he built. In his defense, the countertops seemed to be formed and built well. Unfortunately though, no one could even tell that we had the very popular concrete countertops, because Flipper “stained” them with a product widely sold at Home Depot  that’s homonyms with the word “Bear.” Hang with me, fellow English nerds.

Anyway – the problem was that this product does not actually stain the concrete. What it does do, at least in this case, is coat the concrete with a flat OPAQUE surface that resembles paint. And what color did Flipper choose???

ROYAL FREAKIN’ BLUE!!  Who does that?

We had royal blue countertops as far as the eye could see – and I mean that literally. Our small (1300 sf house) has a ginormous amount of countertop space, much of it readily seen as soon as you walk in the front door, thanks to an open design plan.  (The above picture is the view from the living room.)  We had countertops in the kitchen, in the living room, and in a small room that we use as a bar.

I wanted to stain the countertops so that they would have that unique and trendy concrete look. If you don’t know what stained concrete countertops or floors look like, do a Google search and find some images. They are stunning and so popular now. And we all want to be popular, right?

So, not only were the countertops slathered in royal blue, the “stain” was chipping, lifting, and peeling everywhere! This picture shows what happened when a sticky bottomed Coke can (no, I wasn’t responsible for that!) was left sitting there. When I tried to lift the can, the stain came right up with it. Same thing happened when a piece of tape fell on the counter. Same thing happened when you looked it funny. You get my drift.

*Note* real stain doesn’t act in such a manner. Real stain saturates the surface it is applied to so that this kind of lifting doesn’t occur.

 

Now, go get yourself a glass of wine and sit back because we’re getting ready to talk about stripping. No. Not that kind.

Before I get too far here, I do need to specify that Flipper didn’t seem to use any sort of sealer on these countertops. And I don’t know if one was necessary. So the problem may not be 100% attributable to the product. But what I can fault the product for is that it clearly didn’t stain the concrete. It just covered it.

So, imagine my scenario. Hubby had just left on a hunting trip and I decided to go ahead and strip. NO!! Not that kind. Get your minds out of the gutter.

I decided to strip the countertops. And I thought that I could finish it by the time he came back home on Monday. Ha to the freakin’ ha.

Project Players:
- Citrus Stripper (because I was working indoors and didn’t want to live out the rest of my years in an iron lung)
- Protective gloves (latex and heavy duty chemical resistant gloves)
- Steel Wool (grades 2 and 3)
- 4 inch razor blade scraper
- Blue easy-to-remove painting tape (so you don’t peel away your good stuff.) I prefer 3M. It’s more expensive but worth it.
- Plastic Sheeting to protect the things you don’t want stripped, like cabinets and floors
- TSP ( a heavy duty detergent in powder form)
- Old or cheap paint brush that you’re okay with throwing away

 

The very first thing (and probably one of the smartest) was to break the project into portions. I think that many people can become seriously overwhelmed by projects of this size because it can be, well, overwhelming when you look at it as one BIG project. I knew that this would be more easily tackled in chunks that were manageable, so I envisioned sections of my kitchen. More on the importance of this in a bit…

Cover your surfaces when using stripper. Use plastic sheeting and tape. I taped where the counters met the walls, and used the sheeting to protect underneath.

I took a deep breath, put on my gloves, and liberally applied a coat of stripper. Then I brushed it so it would thickly coat my surface.

Almost immediately, the blue topmost layer started to crack and deteriorate. See below, how it’s starting to change?

Then I took the scraper and pressed down, starting in the corners, pulling up layers of paint that I lovingly refereed to as atomic sludge.

I gathered this sludge as best I could and discarded it into an old plastic bag.

Here’s the bad news… although the stripper removed the top layer of color, it did not remove a darker, more sinister layer that hung on for dear life underneath. I was perplexed… why wouldn’t it come off? After all, it was practically falling off on its own before I started the removal process.

I don’t know the answer to that… but I do know that often, when you strip various surfaces, like wood – which is porous – often, stripping isn’t as easy as you’d think. You sometimes have to rub rub rub until the stuff comes clean. Enter our friend, steel wool.

Tip: Once the stripper has removed what it can, by itself, I recommend applying another coat of it to see if it will remove anything else. Follow the product’s instructions. I applied another coat, gave it several hours to sit and do its thing, drank another glass of wine and then brought out the big guns.

Here’s when I knew that this project wouldn’t be completed in a couple of days. I could see that I would have days and days of stripping ahead of me. So, I sectioned off the countertops into real areas that I delineated with masking tape and a magic marker. They literally read, “Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday” and I taped them down in areas I could do every day. That way, I would have a specific amount that I needed to do every day and I would also have an idea of how long this would take. It seemed much more doable this way.

I then took the most abrasive steel wool I had and poured more stripper on the countertop. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed until I could see the very beginnings of bare concrete underneath. I rubbed left to right, then up and down, and then in circles until I could see progress. I worked like this in approximately square foot portions. Essentially, I broke my sections into sections.

This picture below shows the color beginning to lift.

See that smile?  That’s my “OHMYGOD is this ever going to get done????” look.  

But the changes I had in store were drastic.   And drastic changes require drastic measures.  Unless you want to pay a professional.  And then that can require drastic money.

I digress….  “Back on task,” as my seventh grade English teacher liked to say.  After I completed the section, I mixed some TSP (per package instructions) in a small bucket and then dipped an unused (less abrasive) steel wool into the mix. I scrubbed and scrubbed some more until it all started to lift. What I learned after much trial and error is that the first round of scrubbing with the stripper only got me so far. It seemed like the job could only be accomplished with lots and lots of TSP water worked in. It seemed to break down what what the stripper couldn’t remove.

Hubby arrived home on Monday to a tired and frustrated wife who had been scrubbing for 3 days and had less than half the countertops stripped.  The proverbial stripper jokes were  made and then I put him to work in an effort to save time.  Finally, after 5 days of hellish stripping and scrubbing, I ended up with countertops that were mostly bare concrete.  Some flecks of color were left imbedded in deeper portions of the concrete, but I determined that they would have to stay – as I did not want to rub so hard that more aggregate would be exposed.

I felt like this was quite an accomplishment because from this point forward, everything I would be doing would the fun stuff. I know I’m going against the stripper’s (yes! that kind… finally) credo here, but putting on is so much more fun than taking off.

The last thing I needed to do before I got ready for the staining part of the program was rinse the TSP from the countertops. I used a scrub brush (like something you would clean a tub with) and a sponge. I first scrubbed the area with the brush and clean water and then I went over it with a sponge and clean water, until the water on the sponge was neither gray nor sudsy. This took several times before I felt that there was no TSP left.  Rinsing well also removes the very fine particles of dust that you don’t want ending up in your final product.

Project Tips:
- Wear gloves for every step!!! I got lazy on one TSP wash once and didn’t wear them. My hands got an unwanted chemical peel. Yuck.
- Keep using new steel wool pads. They get clogged up with residue and don’t seem to work as well after a while.
- Keep rubbing! That color will lift…. eventually.
- This project doesn’t require ridiculous strength, just ridiculous patience.
- Work in sections. Manage your project in a way that works for you. We all have busy lives, but you know best how much you can bite off every day.
- Ventilate, even if you’re using a citrus based stripper. I can’t imagine that anything used to remove paint would be good to inhale.
- Stripping sucks. Get used to that simple fact and keep thinking of the big picture. When I would start to feel like all this work wasn’t worth it, I stopped and remembered that I was doing all this so that I could eventually stain the countertops the right way, and by doing so, experience eternal do-it-yourself glory!!

After all the surfaces were stripped and rinsed thoroughly, I was ready to stain. This is the essence of the project, and indeed much more fun than stripping. In the next few posts, I will show you how to stain concrete and why I decided going green was the way to go.