If you use concrete colorant, you'll get pretty good results, but it has to be for concrete. The darker the color, the more colorant you'll need. The package will come with the amount to use per pound of dry concrete mix. You don't need to use concrete stain, you can use virtually any stain, paint, whatever. We've been in the decorative concrete business for over 10 years, so I know what works. We like to use woodstain (not the gel type) to create awesome effects. The concrete stain tends to be opaque, whereas the wood stain will give you a transparent color. Use diluted acrylic craft paint, also. They take on a beautiful look, more of a wash. I do not like using the acrylic paints straight on as they tend to be too 'false' looking. Just use Krylon or another good clear spray paint for your sealer (after you've painted the piece) and you'll be good for outside.

Hello "flat"-fans...! I feel bad about your wall situation. I wish you would've came to our store! I would've strongly recommended the ACE Sensations flat (Scotchguard in it), or maybe a Satin-sheen "traditional" wall-paint. With kids in the house, flat just doesn't cut it. For an adults bedroom or office...fine. For a kids-room or family-room...no way! Gotta think "real-life" here. >>> I'd seriously use a Satin for your stairway. >>> The whole point of having a "sheen" in a paint is to resist the damage that requires you to "touch-up" a flat in the first place!! >>> TRUE...a flat does minimize wall imperfections, AND some grades are CHEAP... EXACTLY why builders like it! >>> MOST flats don't have the sheen to resist water penetration like a Semi-gloss does. S/G paints resist burnishing and clean very well. >>> TRUE...the higher the sheen, the more imperfections you'll notice. BUT...cleanability can't be beat. >>> If you've GOTTA have flat...check an ACE near you. The Sensations flat is superb. When dried for a couple weeks, we rubbed dirty motor-oil, tomato sauces, peanut-butter, crayons, etc. onto the film. With light wiping & 409 cleaner, it cleaned off great! It's about $7 more per gallon than the regular flat. >>> For touching up a Satin or S/G... use a small sponge with a bit of paint and lightly "dab" it on. This simulates the stipple of a roller. >>> Use the best quality paints you can afford...don't skimp on rollers/brushes either! This'll help! Faron

Wow - thanks for all the feedback! Still digesting it all but here's some random late-night thoughts. I do see his point about the doors. On our main floor (which is obviously heated and air conditioned) we have a few doors made from tongue and groove pine in the barn door style and they have warped and flexed -- in the summer, they swell and stick, in the winter, they warp. I consider it part of the charm of the house but I could definitely see how that much movement might cause problems on a sliding track. hoosiergirl - those look like the doors I found that are a thousand bucks a door! They are cool though! natal - those drapes look cool, but those openings are small. I can't picture 18 feet of drapes....that seems overwhelming to me. All the suggestions for built-ins and such would be wonderful, but we're pretty far along so I think it would be costly to change now. Besides, the things that are getting stored here aren't pretty (rubbermaid tubs full of thomas tracks and other random toys) so I definitely like the idea of closed doors. My kids are 6 and 9 so I'm thinking they shoudl be able to manage the doors without hurting themselves. And once we outgrow the need for this much toy storage, I plan to fill the closet up with christmas decorations and sporting equipment and other bulky ugly stuff anyhow. So anyhow, right now, my current thinking is to use 5 completely flat doors and one paneled one (I didn't want to confuse you in the original post, but one of the doors needs to have a grille in it because the dehumidifier will live in this closet as well. So I was thinking of cutting the middle panel out of the single flat panel door (thanks for the correct term bronwynsmom!) and replacing it with metal grille to allow for air circulation to the dehumidifier section of the closet. I was even thinking I could bolt two doors together into a 6 foot door (maybe even use wood putty to hide the "seam" down the middle - think that would work?). Then I'd have 3 6ft doors that I'd just paint with chalkboard paint for now. The plain flat door blanks are dirt cheap so I could try this approach for now and, if I wasn't happy with it, I guess I could try building my own barn doors later. There are two things that concern me about this plan though -- one is that the end door would actualy have one flat door and one paneled door bolted together (to allow for the air grille) - that might look dumb. Plus with the 6 foot doors, there will be alot of the area covered at any point in time -- one of the tracks is always going to have 12ft of door on it. Versus if I just hung the 3 ft doors alternating -- then I'd have each track with 9 ft, exposing an additional 3 ft with the doors all the way open. I suppose I could get around this by having 3 separate tracks instead of 2, but I'm not sure the door opening has the extra depth for that and we're hemmed in by ductwork so I don't know if we could make the space if we wanted to. I'm terrible with visualizing stuff like this in my head, so I think I need to draw it out on paper. Bronwynsmom -- the idea you describe about jointing two paneled door blanks together - can you explain it again? I've read your paragraph over and over and it sounds intriguing, but I'm not quite getting exactly what you're describing. Anyhow, thanks again for the feedback. I've got a few days to figure it out, so keep any ideas coming!

Autumn, we investigated in advance of building the walls for our closet, so we knew that 4 of the large units would fit (since you're building, you could do the same). As far as the exact design, we did it at the store with an associate's help. We have 5 short hanging sections, one section with all shelves above a short hanging sections, two sets of 5 drawers each, and some extra shelves where we could fit them. We actually measured what we needed in advance, although I will say I forgot to account for the [very few] long hanging items I have (a few dresses, even though I hardly wear dresses). I'm not going to modify the closet, I'll just hang those elsewhere. One thing you should know is that there is one color that you have to order (we couldn't wait for it - called something like "whitewashed oak" or "driftwood" or "weathered" I can't remember). We just got birch. We paid to have someone else put them together, and the whole thing including delivery and assembly was less than $1500.