Helping redo a barn for my sister and was looking for a durable finish for the small attached apartment. At the moment, it's a laminate with an unfinished slab bedroom but will take a lot of abuse due to being attached to a horse barn and most likely housing a groom or barn help. I was thinking tile but hate to keep things really straight :ghey: and started to think of DIY acid staining and was wondering if anyone had done it (found a 2008 thread but no first hand experience). Floor prep is key and the back room is a clean smooth slab and the front appears to be too (from the small amount of laminate I pulled up) so that is a plus. I would rent a buffer, get a hand pump sprayer, I have a sprayer for the sealer, and then get some safety equipment (respirator, gloves, cleats, etc).

This site has excellent tips and since I am pretty handy, I figured I would give it a go. Worse comes to worse, I will tile over it

I know you can score lines and use tape to get designs but I'm thinking simple, like below.





Thoughts? Tips? Pics at your house whether DIY or pro?

Edit - Pics at your house of your floor, nothing else Whiskers.

 

Looks pretty nice, but lots of messy, dangerous chemicals and it's a really cold floor.

I'd recommend snap-together laminate over an insulation layer. Warmer. Softer. Much less installation trouble than acid or tile.

 

I rented a Dimabrush from HomeDepot to get old mastic and other crap off of my slab. It's fantastic but it will give you a work out and make a mess in the room. If you use it I recommend keeping the floor wet to keep down on the dust. The machine will really act out of control until it starts to bite into whatever you are removing. The concrete looked brand new when it was done.

You won't be able to get all the way into the corners with the big boy so if that's important you can purchase a small Dimabrush to put on a 4" or 5" electric grinder. However it's important that the grinder be variable speed because a one speed grinder spins way too fast.

Here are some pics.

In this first pic on the left is original condition of the floor. On the right is after I went over it with the Dimabrush. Since I wet the floor you can see that it turned everything into a slush but see evidence of white concrete underneath.



In this pic you can see the finished product. Note the leaf that had fallen into the concrete when the slab was laid down over 45 years ago.



If you look carefully you can see some swirl marks, I don't know how that would look after staining. I laid down a vinyl floor on top of mine.

 

doop, where is that slab in the house??? I may have to do this in the garage if I plan to go epoxy...

 

It was in the back room of my house (indoors). This would work in a garage.

The biggest thing was keeping the floor a little wet so that I didn't get dust all over the place. Since my room was indoors it was a little bit of a challenge. I removed the floor molding and since my walls were wood paneling the water didn't bother it. If it was drywall I probably would have had to figure some way from keeping the drywall from absorbing the water.

The best way I found to get the slush off the ground was to use a big squeegee to push it together and then scoop it in a big garbage bag. You might be able to suck it up with a shopvac if you let it dry out.

There are two different Dimabrushes. The removal tool and the prep tool. I used the removal tool. Maybe you want to use the prep tool as well if if you plan to put down epoxy. Home depot had them both.
http://www.diamabrush.com/