Floors, we've got you covered (almost)

Our time in a trailer has been very productive I think, especially considering all of the holiday and birthday events we've had to attend over the last couple of weeks.  Between fathers day, two different birthdays, and the 4th of July; we haven't had a full weekend to work on the house. But we've squeezed in what we could.  Here's a little breakdown of what we've accomplished this weekend.

Staining the Concrete Floors

Step one, we cleaned the floors with a degreaser and a janitor style buffer to get all the crud loose.

Next, we took the Shop-Vac and sucked up all the gunk that was left behind.

I was pleased with how clean they got just from that. No clay spots, no dirt.  The total filthiness of the floor was really killing me, so now I'm a bit happier :)

Step two, etching. We used the stuff I talked about in previous posts, Eco-Etch. I thought the stuff kinda smelled good, but maybe that's just me.  Anyway, we used a garden sprayer to put that on...let it set for about 30 minutes, came back and roughed it up with a stiff bristle brush and then let it sit for a few more minutes before spraying the floors with the hose to deactivate it (carefully, so as not to spray the drywall) and then again with the Shop-Vac to get it up.  I didn't get any action shots of the etching, but here's an aftershot.

Step three, stain.  Next, I put the stain into a paint tray and used a deck staining pad to put it on the floor.  That took a bit of a learning curve, but we started in the gym so it's no big deal...we'll be putting rubber mats down there eventually so it will be covered up if it looks like crap! (Which, honestly, it kinda does...we learned quick with the swirl marks, but forgot to go back and fix where we started).  I did this barefoot because I kept getting it on my shoes and tracking it to places that weren't ready to be stained yet.  Then I moved to socks and after those got ruined I just gave up and went barefoot.  It was easy to tell if I had something on my foot that would track, and it was easy to get off with a rag. I'm not necessarily recommending this as an application method, but I just got tired of fighting it and said who cares if I have brown feet :)

Here's the family room about 3/4 done...don't mind the footprints, we got those cleared quickly :)

 This is the office, laid it a little thick here and had to do some major spreading to thin it out enough.

 Here's a view from the stairs, the last place we stained so we could make sure to have an escape!

This was a "hold the camera around the corner and take a shot" picture after we were done staining.

Now, at this point I would like to note something.  The color we chose was Charcoal Black. I'm not sure if it's just this color or what, but the can says 400-600 sq ft./gallon.  I, accordingly, ordered 4 gallons.  Guess how many I used.  Less than one. The stain was SOOOO thin.  When I used the samples (earlier post) the Charcoal Black was the same, but the other colors were not that thin. I thought it was just an old sample or something.  The other colors were more of a paint consistency, maybe not that thick, but closer to paint than water.  So, I'm not sure why, but I managed to squeeze 4 times the spread rate out of the Charcoal Black.  If anyone with Soycrete experience has any insight into that, I'd be happy to hear it. I was worried that it wouldn't turn out the color I wanted or we didn't etch it right or something, but I don't think so.  We are having a drying problem now, but there are spots that get direct sun that have dried PERFECTLY to what I wanted.  The spots not in the sun though, still wet after two days of dry time. So much for seal it after 6 hours!

You can see in this picture, after 16 or so hours of drying, the stuff on the left gets direct sun.  The stuff on the right, not so much.

This is a better shot of the aforementioned "stuff on the right" that didn't dry.

Another example, office closet.  Really, very not dry.

The office itself...also, not dry.

The bathroom, not even close.

I'm going to try to wipe up an inconspicuous area to see if that will be ok or if we need to bring in a dehumidifier. Something's got to give here.  We'll see what happens. I'll get back to you and let you know if I ever get to move on to step four, sealing.

Tiling the Master Bath

While we were waiting for the stain to do it's thing, we moved on to tiling. We're using 18x18 tiles and 1/16in grout lines.  We started by dry fitting everything and making the cuts...theoretically that should have made the the wet application much easier...theoretically.

Here I am, making mark ups for the last cut in the water closet. This is the dry fit stage, so I'm not walking on freshly placed tiles with thin-set...but I will later after my dry fit cut doesn't quite work out...I got it fixed, sort of, but it's around the toilet area.  No one will see that, right?

Here's Casey, being all buff.  He asked me not to post this picture, but I had to show him doing something in this tiling process...he did help, even gave me the shirt off his back so we could wipe the tiles to get the water off from the tile saw before I placed them. The bonus, I got some eye candy while I was working...eat your heart out Scooter B. 

So since we had a birthday event to attend, we had to cut it short. This is all we got done the first day, but that's quite a bit if you consider we went all the way into the water closet (on the right, behind the wall) and all the way to the shower (the opening on the left) and didn't start until 10:30 because we had to run into town to get some supplies.

Same progress, different angle (into the shower area)

The next day, this is what I accomplished with my Mama as my helper this time (Casey had to work, I took off this whole week).  Our only deterrent to completion, we ran out of tile...oopsie.

The next few pics are just more angles of what I got done today. We'll order more and finish up later.  The kitchen tile should be in tomorrow though and I get to work on that. Then you'll have some real visual of the kitchen decor.  Anyway....back to the bathroom for a few pics.

While all of this excitement was going on, we finally got our front and back porches poured. Didn't get a pic of the back porch, but here's a view of the whole front of the house with the front porch done.  The masonry is also done, except what is going on the front porch columns.  Exciting stuff guys. Exciting.  Stay tuned for more of the DIY home building process.