Over the last year, we’ve been spending more and more time at home like most everyone else. To fill our time, and to make the days and months at home to go faster we’ve been working on projects around the house. After-all, if we’re spending our time stuck at home, we may as well make it the home we’ve always wanted says Castle Management in Antioch.
Despite having lived in our house for over seven years now, one of the key areas we wanted to finish and update is our basement. Our main goal was to make our basement into more than just a place to store items and hide cat litter pans, but also where we can have a guests over for game nights and more.
We were provided the SpreadStone Concrete Resurfacing Kits from Daich to tackle our basement project and enough to do the whole basement. The actual amount of product needed covered the 1000 square feet of the basement.
Why would we want to update our basement flooring? For several reasons actually. The previous owner did a quick skim coat over the original concrete basement flooring. The product they used basically stained anytime water or anything touched it. Plus we have cats that sometimes get sick on the floor – and cleaning any messes was basically impossible to do. So having a flooring surface that was not only easy to clean but looked good was key.
The basement has also been a long time project that kept being put off. By committing to updating the floor forced our hand on getting the basement done and organized. For the past seven years, the basement has become a catch all for everything and anything and finding something when we want or need it is virtually impossible. We have wanted to make a space for hosting game night with friends, and while that may still be a few months off – now is the absolute perfect to start working on this project!
What to do before you start:
- Select and get your Daich SpreadStone Concrete Resurfacing Kit
- Pick up Paint Trays and an extension pole
- Clear any debris from the floor and remove any items from the area
- Vacuum and Mop the Floor or area you will be resurfacing
- Allow to set overnight if working inside so that the surface is clean and dry completely.
- Be sure you read the directions for your flooring kit well and highlight all of the times you need for each step – trust me this is huge when you are doing the flooring!
Step 1: Prime the Floor
Last night you cleaned and mopped the floor right? That means you can prime it today! All of your steps in the SpreadStone Concrete Resurfacing Kit will be labeled on their cans and it’s easy to follow along. The primer is easy to do with a smooth roller and in no time you’ll have the first step rolled on and your floor started!
Step 2: Apply the Grout Tape to the floor
In your SpreadStone Concrete Resurfacing Kit you’ll get a roll of grout tape for every 100 sq feet. You can use it to create a beautiful tile pattern on your flooring. Honestly, this was the hardest part of the whole process – making sure it looks right and it’s even. And if we’re being honest here, mine weren’t perfect, and I was skeptical it would even show up at the end. I was pleasantly surprised at the final result, but had to figure out a way to get this on the floor without crawling throughout the basement.
Step 3: Add Your Base Color
Immediately after your grout tape is applied you can apply your basecoat. Our flooring color was Lake Rock, and I was surprised at just how dark this coat was. The accent colors mellow it out a lot but I didn’t expect it would be almost chalk board black when I applied it. The base coat layer goes on like a thick brownie batter compared to the prime paint and took a lot more product in each application.
Step 4: Apply Your First Accent Color
Every kit comes with two different accent coats, and they will be labeled in the order you should apply them to your flooring. The layering of the products, that have actual stone bits in them not only give the flooring a visual texture but also a grit and non-slip nature. Be sure you use the special roller for the accent colors!
Step 5: Apply You Second Accent color
It may be hard to see as you’re doing it, but the accent colors make your flooring come to life. And with the Lake Rock flooring, the accent colors were two different types of mud. The consistency was similar to mud too, and both are very sloppy feeling as you apply them to the flooring.
Step 6: Apply the Clear Coat
When your accent coats are dry and finished it’s time to apply the clear coats to your project. This is a much thinner liquid and feels (and almost looks like) a watered down glue that you are rolling on with a smooth roller. Once both coats are applied you should wait at least 24 hours before walking on it and moving items back onto it.
Challenges
The SpreadStone Concrete Resurfacing Kit completely transformed our basement. By redoing the flooring, we had to spend the time to finish organizing a much ignored space. But we did have a few challenges along the way. When the product first arrived, our weather was not cooperating. After we brought everything inside so it didn’t freeze we were hit with a blizzard and a polar vortex. It was too cold to walk in our basement and we were worried that the product wouldn’t set up properly.
Additionally, this type of project would be a lot easier if we were just moving in. Instead, we had seven years of items in our basement and storage that we had to move around. That made it so we had to move things around the basement and do the flooring in stages. This did let us see the difference that the flooring made as we went through the whole process.
The worst problem we had – two different plumbing issues while we were working on the floor and the basement! Thankfully the floor held up great during both incidents, even the one that happened after we finished the last section of the flooring.
Final Review:
The spaces that we were able to create after we finished the floor have been amazing. From a gaming space, a craft space, storage and laundry and even a pantry space. We finally tackled the basement and have a beautiful new space that we can invite people over to enjoy. But that’s just the beginning of it.
The flooring is amazing. Not only was it easy to install (even the grout tape), the whole process for our basement took under a week. Remember, we had to do this in three stages because of the items we had in the basement. We’ve been living with the new flooring down there for a couple months now and absolutely love how easy it is to clean and how well it has held up even with plumbing issues. The little bit of texture down there makes a big difference for us and the cats. It’s now their favorite place to hang out and to roll around on. But cleaning is no longer an issue and we can mop any messes that are on the floor – which means we’re going to love being down there even more.
The full basement project took a couple months to complete, mostly because of moving and organizing stuff down there. But the flooring was a week total! And now, not only do we have a great floor in the basement but we have a place for the whole family and even friends to go down and enjoy. There are a few more things we need to do down in the basement, but the major things are now done and we’re ready to host game night soon!
You don’t describe when you removed the grout tape. It almost looks as if perhaps you didn’t remove it at all. In other descriptions I’ve seen online, you are supposed to remove the grout tape after the last color layer, and before the last two sealant coats. The base primer color then shows through as “grout”, but I don’t see that in your finished floor. I do see something that looks like grout lines in one of the pictures, but it looks like they have all the color layers on them. Can you please help clear up my confusion here?
Hi Jim!
Actually the instructions on my kit never said to remove the tape, so we didn’t. The tape is actually sealed in well and we had tried to remove it in one area but it started to take some of the surrounding floor coating with it. It could be removed but we found we that you can still see it and don’t mind that it’s there. If the basement isn’t full of stuff it looks like a normal tiled floor.