Wednesday, July 12, 2006

It's Wednesday Already?!



Wow, How can it be Wednesday already?!

And holy cow, it's only 9:30AM and Shannon already has nearly 80 bloggers listed on her Works-for-Me-Wednesday! list! Man, I need to get busy!

Here goes.

With 2 grown-ups (well, mostly grown-up), 5 kids, 2 cats, a dog and a bird, I admit it - we're just not a carpet family. Now at our old house, the carpet was brown and hid a lot; but when we moved into this house the carpet was a lightish blueish gray and it became apparent very quickly that we are NOT carpet people. We were in denial for a while, even tried to have the carpets cleaned several times, but no, just no.

We began looking at carpet replacement alternatives but most of them were WAY out of our price range. I mean we have more than 1000 sq. feet we're talking about and even the cheapest tile installed ourselves would still cost us over $1000! Ouch.

So, I did some research and discovered that we could take out the carpet and paint the concrete underneath. The internet has a plethora of information and "how-to" guides. Designer concrete is all the rage. Here's a website I found very helpful, HGTV-Concrete Courageous. I liked this one too, Painting a Concrete Floor. And you can go to professional websites to get ideas of floors you can do yourself.

Did you know that pretty much anything you can do to your walls you can paint on your floor? As simple or as creative as you like. Don't like the way it looks? Wash it off or prime over and paint again. Then you just put down a solid topcoat of polyurethane and you're good to go. And all at a faction of the cost of tile or wood or carpet. And in a few years, if we want a new design, we can just strip this off and put down something new. Now, if we ever move, we'll probably have to put down more conventional, but we're not planning on moving anytime soon (ever) so that's not a problem.

Here is a picture of our first project - our dining area - which used to be carpeted. (I ask you, who puts carpet down under the area where eating takes place?!?!) I like the way the "rug" turned out. And you can see a little of the living room that we painted to look like denim overalls.


Here's my new canvas. I'll post some pictures when I'm finished so you can see how it turns out.




It's not for everyone, but it works for me! I love Works-for-Me-Wednesdays! So many good suggestions and helpful hints. Check out Rocks in My Dryer for a plethora of great ideas.

13 comments:

Heather said...

WAIT! The rug is painted on the FLOOR? Or is it painted canvas? Way cool! We discovered hardwood under our ugly blue shows-every-little-stinkin-crumb-2-seconds-after-you-vacum carpet. Needless to say most of the carpet is gone (DH clings to having carpet in the living room)

Katrina @ Callapidder Days said...

You did an awesome job on that! Good tip, too.

Jody said...

That is way too cute! I love it. How very clever!

I love the "carpet". How did you do that?

Anonymous said...

That looks fantastic!

Laura said...

I am super impressed! Wish I had that kind of talent.

Unknown said...

That is really nice. I had a friend who wanted to do that, but I don't think she ever got up the nerve.

writex3 said...

OK, I'm impressed!

PastormacsAnn said...

Hey y'all! It's really not as hard as it looks! If you can paint a wall - you can paint your floor. Seriously. that's the beauty of it. I'm really not all that great a painter!

Michelle- This One's for the Girls said...

Totally impressed!!

Sarah said...

My husband does landscape design and installation, and painted or stamped concrete patios are all the rage now. I haven't seen an indoor example before - that's such a great idea!

Beck said...

Very inspiring! And how talented are you? That looks great.
Thank you so much for the kind comment on my site - we are worried about our baby, and it's very soothing to know that people are praying for her - thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hey, people really like your painted carpet work! Did you mention that the handprints are our kid's handprints? Good pictures!
Miss you princess!

Jan/lost-strayed-or-stolen.blogspot.com said...

Love the "rug"! We are planning to build a cabin on our lake lot, and DH wants to use 1 and a quarter inch plywood floors, and says I can paint them any way I want. I need some inspiration!