I am refinishing/painting a concrete patio in my home's atrium in preparation for a new hot tub installation here in a couple of weeks. The concrete pad in the atrium is shown below and is approximately 10' X 12'. I just got finished with getting the old 900-pound redwood hot tub out (Thanks to the back-breaking work of the crew from Emerald Springs Spas) and tore out the old epoxy-pebbled floor, (my labor to this point) which at the time of installation about 18 years ago was called "Futura Stone". This was and probably still is a good underfoot around hot tubs and pool decks where you kind of want a non-skid surface. But the old tub had seen better days, and we decided to get a new one and re-do the atrium at the same time. The old Futura stone was becoming brittle and actually came up pretty easy, I just used a flat blade shovel to scrape and some 35 buckets of debris later, I had it out.
I will of course use a suitable paint for exterior concrete, they make stuff for pool decks and the like which is good for this kind of application. I had considered doing an etched-stain, like in our living room, but wife wants a painted concrete pad, and it's not smooth concrete like you have indoors anyway, which it would need to be for a good stain to work out. We'll do a color like a terra cotta or brick or a reddish-brown or something similar.
The problem I have, and I'm not sure it's really even a problem, is shown on some of the pics below. Glue swirls. See, when we bought the house, the person before had put down some kind of outdoor carpet in the atrium. I ripped that crap up before I had the epoxy-pebble floor done. But now, since I have scraped the old epoxy-pebble floor up, the old glue swirls on the concrete pad are still there. They are very worn down and not very prominent; they have been scraped and swept and cleaned good, but the remnants of the old glue that was used to hold down that exterior carpet stuff remains. I think my next step prior to painting is going to be giving the concrete pad a good power washing, then I will use a concrete primer and then; paint. We will probably do two colors, a primary in say, Terra Cotta, with a complimenting/contrasting color around the edges of the patio; kind of like a border, about 12 -15 inches.
Do you think I need to go rent one of those power units to grind and suck the last remnants of old hard, dried glue off the concrete pad before I paint it or do you think I'm good to just power wash, prime and paint after a good final scrape and clean? An advantage to leaving it as it is would be the limited surface texture it does provide as far as being non-slip. If this was indoors, well, of course I'd grind all the old glue swirls up first, and have a totally smooth surface that I could then do a stain on. There's a pic or two below of the etched-stained concrete floor we did in our living room and you can see the atrium from that view as well.
Anyway, what do you think? Do you think I need to grind this down some more, or is it good to go ahead with final cleaning, prime and paint?
I will of course use a suitable paint for exterior concrete, they make stuff for pool decks and the like which is good for this kind of application. I had considered doing an etched-stain, like in our living room, but wife wants a painted concrete pad, and it's not smooth concrete like you have indoors anyway, which it would need to be for a good stain to work out. We'll do a color like a terra cotta or brick or a reddish-brown or something similar.
The problem I have, and I'm not sure it's really even a problem, is shown on some of the pics below. Glue swirls. See, when we bought the house, the person before had put down some kind of outdoor carpet in the atrium. I ripped that crap up before I had the epoxy-pebble floor done. But now, since I have scraped the old epoxy-pebble floor up, the old glue swirls on the concrete pad are still there. They are very worn down and not very prominent; they have been scraped and swept and cleaned good, but the remnants of the old glue that was used to hold down that exterior carpet stuff remains. I think my next step prior to painting is going to be giving the concrete pad a good power washing, then I will use a concrete primer and then; paint. We will probably do two colors, a primary in say, Terra Cotta, with a complimenting/contrasting color around the edges of the patio; kind of like a border, about 12 -15 inches.
Do you think I need to go rent one of those power units to grind and suck the last remnants of old hard, dried glue off the concrete pad before I paint it or do you think I'm good to just power wash, prime and paint after a good final scrape and clean? An advantage to leaving it as it is would be the limited surface texture it does provide as far as being non-slip. If this was indoors, well, of course I'd grind all the old glue swirls up first, and have a totally smooth surface that I could then do a stain on. There's a pic or two below of the etched-stained concrete floor we did in our living room and you can see the atrium from that view as well.
Anyway, what do you think? Do you think I need to grind this down some more, or is it good to go ahead with final cleaning, prime and paint?
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