A Southern Porch In The Making… part two (Faux Tiling)

WARNING – LONG Photo Heavy Post!

I shared with you the downers of my dreamy southern porch and the big plans I had for it…here.

Well… it is FINALLY starting to shape up.

So for this post… let’s talk concrete!

I showed you the “ugly” of our existing bare concrete.

Not being able to afford new concrete… or tile… or something cool…

my solution was suppose to be an easy spray on stain.

BUT…

because of a color mishap with Valspar (the blue in the pic was suppose to be a blacker gray (Ember) according to the swatch –Ugh! )…

I had to get creative and decided to try and faux tile our porch…

This was a very ambitious project for myself… I have tried my hand at a faux stone wall (which took me three tries to get it the way I wanted it)… but not a faux tiled porch!

And so the challenge began…

I went back to Lowes and bought 3 more gallons of Valspar Stain to play with.

Call me CRAZY!

This was me playing while the hubby was at work… just to show him where I was going with all this paint.

After approval (a nod from hubby)… oh and several of my neighbors…

(I was very insecure about all this)…

  I continued on… marking out my lines and faux tiling.

Now… here is where I differed from the traditional laying down of painting tape for grout marks…

I used a vinyl tile from Lowes as a template and traced each square from that.  I didn’t want big paint tape lines for my grout… I wanted skinny lines. 

HOWEVER…

lessoned learned…

duh Kendra…

Don’t put down all the grout lines before painting the tile… 

(which I mainly did for a visual… trying to envision how it would look tiled out).

It just ends up being DOUBLE WORK since I had to sponge over most of them!

So don’t do that…OK?

OK!

Continuing on…

I sponged out my colors with sea sponges.

This process started taking way too long because the bare concrete was soaking up the stain like crazy!

So… a couple of days later… I found an old sponge faux roller I had never used and decided to roll out several layers of paint over the rest of the porch.

Then I went back over that with my sea sponges for an individual tile affect.

As I went along…

(this whole thing was fly by the seat of my pants kind of thing)…

 

 

(All the red paint splotches in the photo was left over paint at the end of the day and I wanted to use the rest of it so… I sponged it on each remaining tile.)

I decided to do an inlay of faux tiles (like a rug) from the stairs to the front door.

Hubby traced out a rectangle and a border

and

patched the crack I showed you in the first post.

This time… I went ahead and sponged the color in first without all the grout lines… getting smarter here *ahem*… while keeping the border on the lighter side of my colors.

Then I had to decide what design to use on the faux inlay rug.

Again… flying by the seat of my pants…

I “shopped” my house for some metal décor and used them as templates.  I just placed them out and traced in and around them.

I had to tweak here and there with the design but they worked well for templates!

We finally went back and re-grouted the whole porch with my stain/paint and finished grouting the inlay.

NOTE on the technique:

The tiles again were sponged with the colors I chose (most of it sponged wet on wet but also wet on dry).  I also added some tinting from my acrylic paints in some of the stain to get darker variations.   

Then, I went back and added (using a paint brush) the marble/stone type veins with darker colors.  I painted them out and smudged them up some to blend back in with the tile.  That made them look more realistic and made the tiles “pop”.

We haven’t sealed it yet… but will do so soon.

Here is the final faux tiled porch…

 

And here is the faux tile inlay/rug leading to the door…

My hubby wanted me to paint his portrait in the center… LOL!

He is such a jokester!

I appreciate him finishing the grout lines for me… he did a fantastic job!

So…

if I have any advice for DIY staining and or faux tiling…

(note: I am not a professional concrete stainer, painter or faux tiler)

it would be…

1. Know if you are dealing with sealed or bare concrete… research it online (like I did) and figure out the products you would need for the type of concrete you have!
2. Choose color(s) wisely… and only spray on a small portion of the area you are working on (unlike I did)… and know that (in my case) the color dried the same as the color sprayed on.
3. Ask for sample sizes or quart sizes to test an area (my Lowes only sold the stain in gallon size) but always ask.
4. Ask the paint guy/lady beforehand what happens if you don’t like the color it produces… can you return it or exchange it or tint it differently?  I kind of got two different answers on the tinting thing.
5. The whole spray thing did not work out for me (it splattered and did not spread well)… rolling it with a faux sponge roller seemed to be the best solution all the way around.  With the faux roller… you get that variation in paint and you can control the liquidy stain much better with it. 
6. As far as faux tiling… sponge it out first before grouting unless your using painters tape…  there are some videos online you can watch of people faux tiling.
7. Have plenty of ice packs on hand for backaches or knee aches if you have a large area to hand sponge (thankfully, my neighbor brought me some).
8. Have some padding for your knees… I used an old mat.
9. If it is a large area… either get some help or do it in stages… taking a break now and then.  I was a few days on and a few days off (with ice of course)!
10. Take your time and have fun with it!

Ok…

Part three of my Southern Porch coming soon!

Thanks for stopping by!