The coolness of my floors {concrete floors}

Before we moved into our home it had baby blue berber carpet straight from the 80's.  We knew we didn't want them, but we planned to live with them for awhile before we could budget for some new flooring.  Plans changed real quick when the day we got the keys to our new home we discovered a leak had been occurring within the walls of what would be the kids bedroom.  The carpet was soaked and stained and it was most definitely time for it to be pulled up.  Because we didn't have it in the budget for new flooring we had to brainstorm our next best option.  For our design aesthetic we thought concrete floors would be really cool.  My husband started doing a bunch of research on what equipment he needed to rent, what gear he had to wear for his safety and just what order did the steps for sanding and sealing concrete floors go in.

Here is the before of our great room with its baby blue carpet and walls.

Once my husband pulled up the carpet we held our breath for a semi-decent looking slab.  We got pretty lucky that there was minimal cracking and not too many chalk and glue lines.  You can tell from this photo how dirty this job was.

The bottom left photo shows the glue lines we were working with and then the bottom right photo shows after they had been sanded.  Huge difference.  And then the last step after proper clean-up was to seal the floors and give them a bit of a sheen.

I get asked constantly "how do you like your floors?"  Let me tell you...I love them.  A few of the main reasons are its easy clean-up.  A kid spills a drink, drops their food, gets sick...(all have happened) it is never a big deal.  All we do is wipe it up.  The sealer makes them repel liquid, so wiping up spills is super easy.  I also love how they keep our home super cool in the summer.  We can get to about 100 degrees outside on a summer day and when you come in the house it will be so cool.  And the opposite of this, most people worry about, is the winters.  I can tell you from living here through 4 winters that it hasn't been an issue.  Granted we live in Southern California so we don't have "real" winters.  Another reason I love them is because it is so easy to move furniture around.  And this is crucial for someone likes me who loves to switch it up around here.  And lastly, they fit our design aesthetic perfectly.  They offer a clean slate for the rest of our home to play off of.  If you find yourself thinking about concrete floors I say "go for it" because you can also add something on top of them later.