My friend Abby has lived in a tiny old farmhouse for a while, and recently her and her husband renovated and expanded it to be their forever home. Their new house is fantastic…it’s roomy and open without being huge. Plus it’s on 13 acres…so it’s basically my dream house. I should really do a house tour of the whole thing, actually. One day, but not today… today the only part of her house we’re touring in the mudroom/laundry room floor. Stop it, it’s going to be awesome. Here’s the before…
This room is basically two long hallways, it leads from the main part of the house to the laundry area, then outside (to where the detached garage will be, one day). It’s a work in progress, they still plan on adding cabinetry, countertops, and a built-in mudroom area near the door.
Alright, so, plain sealed concrete floor. Enter the Moroccan Tiles Allover Stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils.
and Sherwin Williams Porch and Floor Enamel…
The plain concrete actually looked pretty great, so we decided to make things easy and use that as our base color. And instead of stenciling the entire thing wall to wall (it’s really hard to stencil corners, and her trim is already installed) we decided to create a long stencil path. So we taped off the area we wanted to stencil using some ScotchBlue painters tape and exacto knife to cut perfect corners.
Hold on, I feel like I’m skipping over a very important detail of this project. Between Abby and I we have four kids four and under. Four BUSY kids. Well, three…one is a baby. Anyway, about right about the time we were taping the kids were being crazy (as expected) so we threw them outside to play. A few minutes later we went to check on them…
It looks like dirt that can be swept away, but it was thick mud had to be scraped off with a putty knife and hose. Then the kids all got the hose treatment too (because they of course wanted to come in immediately after getting muddy). That was hour one…many more hours of kids craziness and destruction were to follow. All in all the floor took us 12 hours…but without kids it would have taken us about a third of that. Oh, the joys of motherhood.
So back to the floor. After everything was taped off we got to stenciling,
At about 7pm Adam (my husband) came and took our two kids and dropped off some Bill Millers BBQ. Abby put her kids to bed and it was all fried chicken, wine, and smooth sailing from there.
I had originally wanted to put a border around the edges of the stencil, just a one inch solid white line. But when we pulled up the tape it looked so good that we left it. I thought it would look unfinished without a border, but the lines are crisp and it looks plenty finished.
The next day Abby put a coat of sealer over the whole thing and I’m thinking it’s going to hold up really nicely.
Jan Elizabeth says
July 26, 2014 at 12:35 amWow, Ashley, that looks fabulous! What a great way to deal with a concrete floor, and so clean looking for the laundry room.
Yvonne @ Sunnyside Up-stairs says
July 26, 2014 at 1:59 amThe stencil surely is crisp and the floor turned out lovely! It’s so cool that you opened a stenciling link party, too. I stenciled our “mudroom” area in April as my first stencil project and I’m eager to stencil something else sometime. Your site will be my go-to site for stenciling ideas! :)
Ashley says
July 27, 2014 at 8:53 amOops…I actually didn’t mean to make that a link party, I was just trying to link to my other stencil projects. Your floor looks amazing….and for zero dollars! It doesn’t get better than that. I’m going to pin your floor to a few of my group boards on pinterest to make up for being a big link party tease.
Yvonne @ Sunnyside Up-Stairs says
July 27, 2014 at 1:21 pmI’m sorry for jumping the gun there. Thank you for pinning my link instead. That’s so kind. :)
Cheryl @ The Creative Me and My McG says
July 26, 2014 at 6:36 amIt looks great! I am especially in awe that you did it with all the kids in tow – I have yet to stencil anything in my home – but I have a table that I would love to give a new life to – thanks for the opportunity to win a great stencil!
Ashley says
July 27, 2014 at 8:47 amHaving the kids around was definitely the hardest part of this project! Tables have to be my favorite thing to stencil, simply because they’re simple to do and don’t take long. It’s a good place to start!
Mary Stewart says
July 26, 2014 at 12:14 pmOkay, I thought it was going to look like a hot mess…but I love it! I think we will be doing this to our garage floor. I really like that stencil and it looks like a really easy process. Thanks for the giveaway!
Ashley says
July 27, 2014 at 8:50 amHa…it certainly had hot mess potential! I think the trick to stenciling a floor and having it not look crazy is using a small, repetitive pattern. Or if you have your heart set on a big pattern to make it VERY tone on tone…to where you almost don’t even notice it.
Shirley says
July 26, 2014 at 8:44 pmBeautiful! Thanks for sharing.
julie spear says
July 28, 2014 at 11:01 amThis turned out really pretty – the unfinished concrete goes great with the wall color! and tag-teaming it was such a great idea, makes it much more fun. I was just telling my childhood friend the other day that we NEVER should have stopped helping each other with “chores”, because it made it so much more fun!!! Great Job, and thanks for the awesome giveaway!!
Ashley says
July 31, 2014 at 9:43 amI agree, friends make projects so much better! Or even just doing something that’s not in your own house is a nice change. I remember as kids my brother and I would sometimes clean each others rooms just for a change. My room was always messier though, so jokes on him, haha.
Samantha says
July 29, 2014 at 5:21 pmI love how your floor turned out, great job!….I stenciled my bedroom wall and entry wall…it always gives such a dramatic effect.
Junalin @ Doula Training says
July 31, 2014 at 7:14 pmFantastic. Very beautiful post. Thanks for sharing.
Adam says
August 4, 2014 at 1:46 amThis floor stencil looks beautiful and it goes great with wall color. It looks like it is done by some professional as it looks perfect.
Alden Brooks says
August 13, 2014 at 2:05 amIt’s awesome!! just like a dream house to me and I wish if I could decorate my home like this..the concrete color, stencil floor..really wonderful. Just last year I have bought a new home in 1 Yacht Rd and decorated it with an interior designer. I am quite happy with her work but I have decided that I will stencil my floor later as Abbey has done as it has impressed me a lot. Thanks! Ashley for sharing this post.
adel says
August 24, 2014 at 2:28 pmNow this is my subject. This is really creative ideas. I just love it.
Melodyhome says
September 3, 2014 at 3:33 amI love your floor design, Ashley, you are so cool.
Robin says
October 17, 2014 at 12:25 pmThis is incredible! i love the look! Any chance i can find out where that drying rack is from? taht hung out at an angle from the wall? Thanks!
Gilly @ Colour Saturated Life says
February 10, 2015 at 7:29 amThis looks incredible! Did you have to do anything to the concrete before you painted it?
Ashley says
February 11, 2015 at 12:03 amI believe my friend cleaned and sealed the concrete before we started stenciling, then sealed it again after we were finished.
Rena @ Lemon Peel says
February 11, 2015 at 9:55 amThat’s just gorgeous! Makes me want to stencil something…
Evija says
February 22, 2015 at 8:32 amI absolutely love this idea and really hope I can try it one day.. you have a patience of a saint!
Bennett Fischer says
December 3, 2015 at 4:37 pmI’m going to be doing some home renovations soon, and part of those renovations requires me to cut some concrete. I’m not sure how to do this though. That being said, I really appreciate you showing me how I’m supposed to go about stenciling it to make sure my lines are straight. I’ll make sure I do this right away and see how much it helps. Thanks a ton Ashely for letting me know how to do this.
Lori says
December 12, 2015 at 6:28 pmI am getting ready to do this in my husband’s mancave. What type of sealer did you use? I am just worried that it will make it slippery if it’s wet if I seal it. It is a high traffic area so I want it to be as safe as possible with kids in and out of the door.
Ashley says
December 14, 2015 at 11:29 amI actually don’t know, I just did the stenciling part. I do know it was a sealer from Sherwin Williams, since she bought the paint and sealer all in one trip.
Silas Knight says
April 5, 2016 at 3:12 pmWow, that concrete floor looks great. I have never heard of someone stenciling cement before, it’s a great idea. We’ll have to look for something like this for our concrete walkways!
Amy says
May 11, 2016 at 1:04 pmThank you so much for the inspiration! We pulled 20 year old vinyl in our laundry room and I stenciled the concrete with another amazing stencil from http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com. It turned out great!
Polished concrete tweed area says
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Concrete Cutter says
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Polished concrete says
September 27, 2016 at 9:41 pmYou did a right choice, polished concrete is one of the most popular for this day.
Kaitlyn says
November 1, 2016 at 10:24 amWow! What a great way to jazz up concrete. Is it still holding up well?
Anika says
November 2, 2016 at 9:54 pmI love how the concrete floors turned out. I couldn’t agree more with not putting a white line on the edges. It looks perfect! Just one question-What sealer did you ise to seal it?
Lenny Face says
December 24, 2016 at 11:49 amI love how the concrete floors turned out. I couldn’t agree more with not putting a white line on the edges.
Amanda says
April 6, 2017 at 12:17 amDid you need adhesive for the stencil?
What did you use to seal it ?