We are currently in the final stretch of our remodel (although it seems as if the final stretch will last till our six year old enters college). We intended to use the original dark red/burgandy concrete floor (such a beautiful colour) but in the end the plumber had to do way too much saw cutting because of drainage issues.

Plan B was to do some sort of concrete overlay. We had someone use a trowel-on product, which really does not look good (not smooth at all, lots ridges, unattractive texture, trowel marks etc). Even after sanding the floor is just not what we wanted, and the water based stain we used did not take evenly at all. Every room looks different. Now that we're apparently looking at Plan C we are starting to research self-leveling concrete. Does anyone here have any experience with this?

I would love to hear about pros and cons, any tips or suggestions, etc. The cost is much higher than the trowel on product, and the process is more complex - but I'm wary of trying to retrowel the floor (even with a different product, although it appears the person we hired used a grade of concrete that was not meant to be totally smooth, our research seems to indicate that a really smooth surface might not be easy to obtain).

Also - as far as colour goes - our original plan was to use a gray stain. We have mostly gray walls of varying shades and we planned on using furniture and art to add pops of colour. Now my husband is having second thoughts - and worries that using too much gray will make us feel like we live in a cave. I'm posting a link to flickr pics of the house (the first few pages are the most recent) - there is one of the current floor there as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36455691@N00/

Any thoughts?

Jeanette

I love the grays in your house. They look fabulous to me. You do have color on the random walls in the house, and that's a lot of fun -- and easy to change if your mood changes. I think by having the flooring more of a neutral color, you can change the walls and furnishings as your mood takes you.

As far as I can tell, I don't think there is a such thing as a 1-step poured cement flooring product that will provide perfect consistency.  It's usually some kind of a primer/substrate/finished coat sort of system, and it always involves troweling of some sort.  Accordingly, any cementitious floor will have trowel marks and other irregularities/quirks.  Although it will fill in minor irregularities in the floor surface, it will not level out uneven floors.

For my house I used Ardex with the standard "grey" finish coat, although the color turned out to be much more of a grey-ish shoe leather brown.  Although it was totally unexpected, I actually liked the color a lot- it looked unexpectedly warm yet it was still a very neutral color.  And my contractors from South America all remarked that it reminded them of the flooring typically used in homes there (which I suspect are either concrete or rammed earth).   The finish is also very smooth/satiny and feels warm to the touch (it was applied on a wood subfloor).

If your slab is in good condition, you could probably get away with just applying a layer of finish coat and sealer (without the gypsum self-leveling underlayment).  For my project, the finished floor came out to around $6 per sf including the gypsum underlayment, so I would imagine the primer + finish coat would be much, much less. 

Good luck,

Ed