PATIO FLOOR

Welcome to the Patio Floor how-to section of our patio makeover.

First let me show you the BEFORE and AFTER:


BEFORE

and 
AFTER:

After my husband rebuilt the roof of the patio (see the OCTOBER section of this blog) we paused the backyard makeover project for some weeks and re-shingled our house roof -- well we hired someone to re-shingle our roof.  I have to say I was not very excited about that project but it looks really great!  Then it was time to go back to the patio work.   

I have to give a shout out to Traci from "Beneath My Heart" blog whose idea for the patio floor I completely copied.  Like me she wanted to lay pavers or tile, but didn't want to spend all the $ to do that, so she created a tile look using diamond shapes on the patio floor.  Traci actually stained her raw concrete.  Her how-to is in the link above.  I would have loved to have stained it because that looks much more like natural stone, but we have too many coats of red deck paint to easily remove it.  If you have an old painted patio floor, then I will show you how to get a great faux tile look.

First my husband extraordinaire removed all the black wrought iron fencing around the patio and around our pool area too.  It was quite a job.  He then prepped the patio floor for me.  He scraped and hand sanded the patio so I could prime it.  I put on a thick coat of white primer, then applied the "grout" color.  I decided to go with brown floor with tan-ish grout.   

I bought the paint at Home Depot.  I used Behr Porch and Patio floor paint; Washed Khaki for the grout, and Pyramid for the main color.

Here is the "grout" color.   

Next I lay down the stripe lines that will serve at the 'grout' lines when the tape is removed.   Hubby helped me measure.  We started from the little corner just to the right of the left hand door, in this picture below.  I used a carpenters square ro help with the angle.  It helps to start in a corner, and work out from there. The squares are 18  X 18 inches. 

I used 1/2 inch 3M tape for the lines.  I had to order it online because it's very difficult to find 1/2 tape as Traci writes in her blog, and regular painters tape is too wide. I ran out of the 3M tape at the very end, and used auto detailing tape from Pep Boys for the last part.  It's much more expensive but you can use it in a pinch.  

Then I painted over this in the Pyramid color, waited for it to dry, and pulled up the tape!  I was worried the brown was too light, but it turned out great.  

I only had three small spots where the tape pulled up the paint.  Not bad.  I really love the look.  Now for the fun part. Furnishing and lighting.    

AFTER

I finally got the furniture updated and back on the porch.  I sanded and re-painted the dining table and chairs, and bought some new seating for the seating area below.  I need to hang some lights as a finishing touch, and maybe new seat cushions for the dining table -- but this is a BIG improvement overall.  Notice the new roof? I  was not excited about new shingles at first because of the cost, but it really ties a bow on everything.  I do need to repaint or replace that old white fence surrounding the yard, but so happy this part is done.  Ahhh.   Now time for a nice glass of wine!