Basement Floors

Light Slate Concrete Dye Gallery

Mar 30, 2022 Justin Richardson

Light Slate is the quietest color we sell and one of the most used, because gray is what people actually want on a floor they have to live with. It is a Vibrance™ Dye color, which means acetone rather than acid — predictable, fast, and layerable with Stormy Gray, White and Charcoal into the mottled look that reads as polished concrete.

Product: Vibrance™ Concrete Dye, color 319 Light Slate
Layers with: White, Stormy Gray and Charcoal — the four-color polished palette
Best on: Smooth interior slabs. Grind first for an even result
Try techniques: Sponge, rag, brush and sprayer all give different looks with the same dye
Seal and wax: AcquaSeal™ then ProWax Polish™

Shop Vibrance™ Dye →

A basement stripped back over a year

This is the most patient project in the gallery. The basement had four different types of flooring on it. The owner removed all of them down to the original slab — by hand, to keep the dust down — over the course of a year, across 1,120 sq. ft.

Size / time: 1,120 sq. ft., 365 days
Removed: Concrete paint from the family room, closet and hallway; tile, glue and leveling compound from one bedroom; laminate from another; vinyl from the bathroom
Colors: Stormy Gray, Light Slate and White Vibrance™ Dye
Sealer: Water-based acrylic satin
Also used: P36 sandpaper and paint stripper

Concrete Basement — Before — bare slab after four floors came off.

Stormy Gray, Light Slate & White Vibrance Dye on Concrete Basement — After — Stormy Gray, Light Slate and White.

Their tip: “Try different techniques (sponge, rag, brush, sprayer) to get the look you like.” One dye, four applicators, four different floors. That is the cheapest experiment in decorative concrete.

Hallway concrete floor — The hallway before.

Light slate, stormy gray and white Vibrance dye stained hallway concrete floor — The hallway in Stormy Gray, Light Slate and White.

Bathroom floor remodel — The bathroom before.

Dyed concrete bathroom floor — The bathroom in Light Slate and Stormy Gray.

A driveway on a budget

Two grays and some clean lines on a concrete driveway, finished with EasySeal™. Dye outdoors needs a solvent-based sealer over it for UV and weather, and the geometry here is doing as much work as the color.