To follow up in case anyone else runs into this problem in the future. After looking at the floor with the builder and several different professional floor guys....the builder agreed that he screwed up and he hired one of the floor guys to grind the entire floor with a diamond tipped blade/disc.....polish with a polishing disc....and now he is going to re-stain. The grinding made the rough spots much better and got out all of the leaf marks etc. He was even able to patch the hole. However, I am worried about several by-products of the grinding. 1) The patch on the hole looks much better than a big hole....but makes a square with a different "texture" than the rest of the concrete. I am concerned with how this will look when stained. Floor guy said he would go in and make it look less of a defined straight edge shape so it would blend better....but haven't seen this yet. 2) The grinding left a swirl pattern in the floor. I haven't been able to see what the polishing did yet...it may have removed this pattern. My wife thought it looked nice....but I will have to see how it looks after stain. 3) The grinding took off most of the "paste" and now aggregate shows through. I know some people go for this "terrazzo" look....but I am worried about it looking more commercial than residential. I am hoping that going with a darker water based stain will hide most of this. I will follow up with pictures after the stain is completed.

Those tend to be very porous and probably won't take to the acid stain so well. They're made of concrete, but it's not the same mix, these are dryer, therefore more crumbly. Poured concrete (the fake stones, counters, floors, statues, etc) is a different mix so it has a smoother 'shell'. That shell is etched with the acid and the color adheres. I've not tried to acid wash this type of concrete product but, you could try one and see if you like that. To get an idea just try diluting some water based wood stain, brush it on, then let dry. If you like the effect, try acid stain. Or, you can just leave the wood stain and put a clear sealer on it if you want the color to stay. It's easy to reapply later, tho. I'm the wife of a decorative concrete guy...so I get to see all his experiments with concrete coloring. He's been using this new stain that he mixes with the muriatic acid that looks like rust. It's really cool, and I'm considering trying it out on the stone fence I have in the back yard.

Hi everyone, hope i am on the right forum. this was the only one i could find that is/was discussing acid stain concrete. most were for indoor and they are all pretty old. anyway, we are going to attempt to acid stain our concrete patio. what brand of stain would u recommend? does anyone want to share their step by step directions? how many colors did u use? brand of sealer? the concrete will be poured this weekend. we do know that it must cure for 28 days and then we can stain it. are there any other things we need to know? houzz is great for pics, but thats usually about it. can never get the info u need. it always seems that the person posting the pic never has all the info about the pic., so frustrating!! these are the look we are going for, so any and all advice would be most appreciated!!! i pullled these pics from houzz.... TIA

I would try keeping it wet for about 24 hours....maybe put a sprinkler on it, then see if the vine pieces have softened enough to come off with a brush. If it was Boston ivy, those little "feet" have some sort of glue in them to allow then to climb even on glass, and of course rain doesn't wash it away. But perhaps the sticky bits are dry enough that they will absorb water and soften. You might try some sort of solvent....maybe mineral spirits....maybe denatured alcohol. Test on a small spot to be sure it doesn't also remove the paint shading.