Hi, I really need your help. I'm doing some painting in my backroom, in my basement, on the floor. In looking up prices on painting the backroom floor, in the basement. It's about $0.50 to $1 per sqft from what I can see. It's about 100sqft with some odd shapes and the area equipment removed from the sum (eg water heater, sump pump, hvac). My nephew had to learn how to do this for this job, which meant I had to learn too, step by step talking to each manufacturer, store personnel etc as he was with me listening as I asked the questions, we both listened. So essentially I had to instruct him even after this pretty much exactly what to do and over see much of this. He is in late 20's. So far we are 1/2 through it. He has etched it, and the next step is painting it. The first part took 5 hours buying and 4.5 hours to etch using acid to make the concrete porous. The next step is two costs of paint. on the floor, It's already bought. My nephew will have to do the trim and then roll the paint, and then do another coat. He has experience in painting so that part should not take that much time, maybe 3 hours then some dry time and then the last coat and then clean up. So I look at this as a learning experience but I want to be fair paying. Any guidance? hp

You're welcome! maire_cate - No pool, but the existing patio does get slippery when wet, especially when I am in flip flops. tinam61 - Our patio was poured, and then it was suppose to be acid stained. Instead, they rolled some type of stain on top, and then sealed it. As I said, the inside has held up with two more applications of sealer in the last 5 years. The outside has actually been re-stained (after the first season and flaking began)and has been sealed 4 times. Yes, the overlay has color applied before the epoxy is poured. Are you thinking of having the lower driveway done with stamped concrete, or brick pavers? If you are in an area that gets lots of snow (and salt) I would not try the stamped concrete. My neighbor has has his torn up and redone, and still had it ruined over the winter with the salt trucks. susieq07 - I've seen your driveway before. You've had that quite a while. Has it held up well? Talked to DH today. We are going to wait for the estimates to come back on our project. If the numbers are within our budget, I think we are going to go ahead and either add to the existing pad before having a coating put on it, or tear the pad up and pour a larger pad. We could also do pavers instead of a concrete pad. Maybe the yard would not get as torn up if we are just taking out the old pad, and not having to have a new pad poured. Again, it all depends on the expense and our budget. I wish for a larger patio to be able to serve our needs. Here is the rest of what we are doing. Pergola will be attached to house. So instead of four columns, we will have two. This will improve our siteline from the house and screen porch. From backyard looking at patio and screened porch From backyard with pergola mock-up From backyard with pergola, grill enclosure and fireplace mock-up Fireplace and/or pergola examples that I like. We are not sure whether to go with brick to match our house (if we can find it) and use stone accents like this. There would be seats on either side and the chimney will be higher to tie in with pergola. I like this the best, but chimney would not be quite this tall because we will have gas. Take away the two columns, and scaled down a bit, plus add the seats. Original dream photo. I've hung onto this for a couple of years. Saw this at General Shale yesterday and was determined that this was it! Today, I am having second thoughts that it may be TOO formal. Plus, the white detailing may become a headache for cleaning. I think that I'd rather go with detailing like the following photo, whether used with stone or brick. Did I tell y'all that we will also be improving the looks of the screened porch post? Instead of the solid paint stain on rough treated post, and the vinyl cladding on the outside of the porch, we will have the post re-wrapped with a smooth paintable wood and then redo the screening and trim them out. Again, this is something with can put on the back burner if needed. After all, I just stained the post last summer. Throw in some landscaping, lighting and furniture, we will be all done!

Aidan - Thank you very much for responding, and for your input and advice! The stringers are precuts and are equal measurements. However, they appear off because they have literally just been placed down in the vicinity of where they'll be located. I had just put them down in approx rise and location to know how much I was excavating away from old raised treebed. Didn't get to grading/leveling/measuring yet as regards to precise locating of stringers, and risers I'll attach to contain. And at that point I'll have to cut apart that 2x8 behind it and attach so steps get filled as one piece with porch pour. Good idea about the diagonal stakes. I will do that. I'll use some extra 2x's that I have and shape a diagonal brace support at several spots spaced around the forms, thanks.

we tore out a landscaping bed for more seating. Sadly we are too far into our project with our landscape guy, paid for concrete already, and quite honestly have been second guessing some of his suggestions. The existing concrete that you see is in the process of being ground down bc it had a brick “veneer” over the concrete pool deck that was crumbling. We decided to chip it off and grind down. Thus, the overlay product once all concrete is poured, so new and old concrete with match. Make sense?