When we bought this house I didn't love a lot of the things about the outdoor space but I knew when the time came to start thinking about the backyard me & the man would think of something. I knew a few things...I was not ripping out the concrete slab, I liked the little rocks embedded in it and wanted to see that in whatever I did, I wanted muted neutral color and some kind of pattern of interest. The harlequin pattern has always been one of my favs & can be very elegant depending on the colors you decide to use.
After cleaning the slab with stain remover and hosing it down, I let it dry overnight. There is not a big chose in stain colors but Behr seemed to have what I was looking for. I purchased Behr concrete stain in semi-transparent (to show the rocks) sun baked clay (the brown/red color)& desert sand(the beige/taupe color). I bought a gallon of each because that is all Home Depot has..yikes! This project was ALLOT of measuring but I figured that I wanted even sized squares either 1/2 or whole, no in-between and I wanted them set going across to try to make the small patio appear grander.
After too much division...my worst nightmare;( I came up with 24" x 24" inch squares & I made my stencil out of a cardboard box so it would last. I also thought I might do a black 4"x 4" in between all the squares in black exterior paint to make it pop but the jury is still out on that as of now.
I taped the entire thing off by using a marker (light colored) around the stencil and then going around and taping over the lines. This process went pretty quick! So satisfying to look at this big mathematically correct grid that I created..."oh how he will be surprised that I did it without his help"...(insert evil laugh here;).
I painted the light sand color first with a foam roller on a wooden extension so my back would not break. This stain is like painting with chicken broth. I had to be extremely careful but I got the hang of it. No pics of the desert sand because basically I was too filthy to touch my camera. I took all the tape off when the second color was still a bit tacky and went around with a small foam brush to touch up the edges.
Definitely one of my favorite home projects. Here it is as of this morning. Crazy what a little soap, paint & imagination can do. The darker lines is just where I pulled off the tape and it shows the natural concrete underneath. I love how it looks. Natural and creative. I am going to seal it but not until I make a decision about adding the black square....What do you peeps think? Leave it alone or keep going and add black grout lines and small black squares??
