Painting a Concrete Floor

Ok, the floor in the music room is painted and I've been slowly chipping away at the final touches to call this room done, but in the meantime, it's habitable! Hooray!!

So about those floors.....here they are.

Well, the paint was still wet in this picture....it's not shiny at all now that it's dry!

So I already went over the crazy/scary part of painting concrete floors. The rest was easy (excepting maybe waiting 5 days to put anything on said floors while the paint cured).

The first thing I did was use a bonding primer so that the paint would really stick to the concrete. That had to dry for at least 24 hours before the first coat of paint went on. Here's a mid coat picture...

I used Behr's porch and floor paint for this because it was what they recommended at Home Depot. It's really thick and sludgy! And with the color I chose, it looked like (and was about the consistency of) chocolate cake batter coming out of the paint can.

I actually did two coats, because just one left a few spots that weren't completely covered, but since the second coat was so much thinner than the first, I got away with only using one gallon of paint.

Ready for the before and after? Here's the garage as it was when we moved in....

...and here it is (even with a little bit of furniture!)

While things look pretty decent in this pic (which I hurriedly took with my iphone, so it's not the greatest), there's still quite a bit to be done in here. I've still got to bring in a desk, more chairs, make another set of curtains (there's a window on the far wall), finishing touches on the paint....in short, I've still got plenty of work to do!

Mr. Blue Chair

All along, the hubs and I have planned to have two seating areas for the living room (one facing the TV, one not, to deal with the large, long room). However, we didn't have anything to make that second seating arrangement out of! You see, our apartment only fit one tiny loveseat, so we didn't own any chairs that weren't dining chairs.

Well, I've taken the first step.

This blue guy came from here, and while I tend to be pretty skeptical of World Market's furniture (I've had some issues in the past with things not going together the way they ought to), I convinced them to sell me the floor model so I knew exactly what I was leaving with.

Oh, and I bought it during their furniture sale, so the $330 price tag was down to $270....and the lovely people there let me use a coupon on top of the sale for an additional perk. When all was said and done, the $330 price tag had dropped to around $230. Woo hoo!

Here's a closer look...

I love how the blue color coordinates with the red stuff we have in the living room, and with the navy backs of the shelves (that I still need to finish and write a post about....consider this your sneak peak!).

And one more shot....see how there's still a ton of empty space? Mr. Blue Eyes will eventually have friends, but for now, we're content to save our pennies. In general, we would rather deal with the empty space than put a "place holder" item there. It turns out to be more expensive in the end and you end up living with something you don't really love in the mean time!

Have you been adding furniture and filling spaces in your home? What are your thoughts on "place holders"?