Ok, this is the last in my series of posts about how we stained our concrete floors one year ago. The posts:

1. Preparing to stain concrete
2. Staining and sealing concrete
3. Caring for your floors

Since it’s been a year, I’ve learned a bit about caring for these floors. Despite calling them concrete floors, the finish is susceptible to scratches and nicks. Especially if you have a big dog with hard claws like we do. It also can get damaged from furniture, so I recommend sticking on those felt or rubber feet wherever possible.  We also kept small bits of our old carpet to put under large pieces of furniture like our bed. We put the carpet side down so that the floor wouldn’t be nicked by the hard furniture.

Even if the floors do get small nicks, you can easily repair them. The floors also seemed to take a few weeks to completely cure to their hardest state so those first few weeks racked up quite a few nicks and now we don’t get them nearly as often.

To fix any nicks, just get a Qtip and dip it in the stain. Apply to the nick. Use the clean end of the Qtip to remove any excess stain, or you will see it left behind after it dries.

If you get light scratches that don’t actually affect the color but you can see in certain light, it’s probably just scratches in the wax coating. These can typically be fixed by applying an extra coat of floor wax (we use the discontinued Alpha 290). The floor wax should be applied at least yearly to keep up the shine.

Another product that helps keep the shine is a BioShield floor soap recommended by House + Earth. It’s the best floor cleaner I’ve ever used. It even makes mopping the tile kitchen floor a breeze because it cleans the dirt off so easily. I’m hooked.

All in all, I’m very happy with the floors. We get many compliments and some people even think it’s tile at first. It was also very economical as far as floors go. I think we did the whole house, even with painting supplies for well under $2000.