Acid Staining Part 2

Well, here are the promised pictures. 'Chung took them last night, and I think between it being dark out and the flash, the color was a bit distorted, and the white spots are reflections from the flash. You get the idea though.


We debated whether or not to go for glossy or matte finish. Obviously glossy won in the end, partly because I thought it would feel better underfoot and maybe be easier to clean, but partly because the finish 'Chung found and wanted to use only came in glossy. He says it's what's used in commercial warehouses and it's strong enough to drive a forklift over. Its a good thing too, because I regularly like to drive forklifts through my living room. I'm still not entirely sure about the look (there's currently a LOT of color in the room and I'm second-guessing the decision to paint one wall purple), but I think once we get furniture and some throw rugs in the room it'll soften up a bit.



This has probably been one of the easiest projects we've done so far, and the only one where we've hired someone and sort of regretted it. We thought it'd be better to get a professional, but really it was so easy I don't see why more people aren't in the business (we only found 2 or 3 in the Bay Area). After cleaning the floor thoroughly, we applied the stain in 3 colors (sadly, in the pictures you can't really see the "copper patina" green that's in some parts). The lady we hired applied it with paint brushes, but when we went over it again we used spray bottles and thought they gave a more even and more random coverage....fewer brush marks.

After letting it react for about 4-8 hours we neutralized the acid with baking soda and washed the floor again to remove the residue. Applying the acid only took a couple of hours and was very easy (I kinda think if we ever do it again it'd be a fun project to involve some kids in...art project...I think we may do our driveway eventually or a future patio.) The cleaning was harder work, but still not too bad. I think we had to clean it about 3 or 4 times after we did the acid.

Finally, the finish was applied. This was probably the easiest part of all, the only catch was we had to work fast. You only have about 30 minutes to apply it. It went fast though, it was like pouring water over the floor and mopping it around. The finish coat is fairly dry within 2 hours (enough to walk on and they say you can move furniture back in then). We did two coats of the finish because the first one had a few funny spots where there must have been an oil residue or something because it didn't completely stick. The second coat looked good though.

Yippee, another project done. I think next we're going to try and get ready for the final inspection...we have to install electric fire alarms and have the sprinkler heads installed (yes, we have a full sprinkler system in the house and outside is a big bell that calls the fire department if they go off...city code...though the fire department is about 2 blocks away, so they shouldn't have any problem getting here quickly in an emergency). Next weekend 'Chung and another guy we've hired in the past are going to continue working on the trim.