How to Paint Concrete to Make it Look Brand New!

Hi and welcome back!  If you’ve been following along, you remember our front porch makeover I’ve posted about a couple of times.  It was all inspired by The Home Depot when they challenged me to build a wheelbarrow and style it.  I got to looking at our front porch – it’s one of those areas that we never come in through, but everyone else does.  It was looking pretty rough. I never thought to paint concrete until I was walking through the hardware store one day.

It’s actually a nice space, and we will be making over this whole courtyard area in the coming months.  We imagine it’ll be a great outdoor living area once we clear it out and finish it up. The front door is straight ahead when you walk through the archway, then this space is too the left.  I image fun string lights and a beautiful outdoor dining set. Soon, soon!

But, one step at a time. The porch was first.  When I was trying to style the wheelbarrow, I couldn’t get past the ugly stained concrete.  I knew I wanted a rug, and I was walking around the hardware store one day and saw concrete paint.  Concrete paint! Perfect! I figured this might be a good idea, so I ran home to read and research bought some on the spot and ran home to paint.  They have a variety of colors to choose from and you can also buy solid colors or semi-transparent.  To see more color options, visit HERE. Here’s how I did it. Seriously, it was so easy.

Materials

• Concrete Cleaner
• Wide broom
• Hose
• Spray Bottle
• Concrete Paint in color of your choice
  • Midnight Blue (this is for four gallons.  I only needed one for this space.  You can have it mixed in store)
• Paint Brushes and rollers
• Paint tray
• Concrete Sealer

Tutorial

The first step is you have to clean the concrete.  I bought concrete cleaner and it seemed to work really well and was super easy!  I basically just used a hose, spray water bottle and wide sweeper broom.  The next step was simply rolling it on like you would with any paint.  I used a brush in the corners and roller on the rest.  It was super thin, which I was surprised about.  I picked Midnight Blue.  It was perfect after two coats.

Then I just used a concrete sealer to seal it up! I used it just like paint, poured it in a tray and rolled it on with a paint roller.  It looks like this until it dries.

It was so easy and made a huge difference.  Plus it has this super cool marble effect when it’s wet.

I would love to carry it onto the remaining walkway, but with that part being hit directly by the sun, I didn’t think dark blue would be too cool under foot.  The patio is covered, but the walkway is not.  I think a cool stencil might be fun.

And if I get tired of it, that is the great thing about paint – you can paint right over it!  But, for now, I love the difference! So much nicer looking. I forgot to take a picture before I added all my fun fall/Halloween stuff, but here’s how it looks now.

What do you think?  Would you paint concrete?

Thanks for stopping by!

April

How to Paint Concrete

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