How to Make a Concrete Floor Look Like Granite

This article will give instructions about the basic steps in faux painting techniques. Faux in French means to fool. There is literally an infinite number of ways to do faux painting. I will explain one of the most simple and effective methods of acquiring a painted finish that resembles granite.

1. Clean your floor and scrape debris if need be. Be sure it is free of any oils, grease,wax etc. Clear the floor of any furniture. If you want to do this outside use exterior porch paint or the equivalent. Preparing your floor properly cannot be over stressed. If the floor is not prepared properly the paint will blister, peel and ruin all your hard work. It doesn't matter if the floor has already been painted. You can just paint over it providing it is free of debris. You can patch any holes or chips with any good concrete patching compound. Patches must dry thoroughly. Vacuum your floor just before painting.

2. • It would behoove you to practice on a board or something before trying this on the floor. Paint your practice board/sheet with your basic background color, two coats, let dry. Wad up one of the plastic grocery bags and dip one edge flattened out into a small amount of one of the other complimentary colors and daub it up and down and around in a totally random fashion on the practice board. Take another bag and do the same thing with a different color. At any point in time, before the daubs dry too much, you can brush the area with the feather duster or soft brush to blend and flatten the paint daubs. This technique resembles flecks of stone particles in the granite. Wet the sea sponge and use it to do the same thing to get even smaller flecks. Be sure to blend all the paint daubs so the surface is flat.
3. • When you feel confident that your are ready to paint the floor, start again with the basic background color and paint the entire floor two coats using either paint rollers or a brush. Let it dry completely. Then apply the techniques you used on your practice board/sheet. The stiffer the baggies the better. The recyclable heavy garbage bags work quite well. Brown paper bags work too. Work one pattern all over the floor at a time. Then go back over with another type tool until you are satisfied with the appearance. If not you can paint over it and start again.

4. There is no limit to the number of things you can try to apply paint so as to resemble flecks of stone. You can use a spatter brush, etc. If you desire you can add two top coats of water base polyurethane. Gloss will make it look more like polished stone. Be sure to use water base polyurethane. The oil base polyurethane will give the finish a yellow cast which makes it look dirty. Not good.