How To: Paint Your Concrete Steps

allie • Aug 13, 2013

Well, I’ve been on a bit of an outside kick lately, since we have to soak every minute of it up before the brutal cold comes again here in Minnesota. So I have one more project that I’m going to share with you. It was a while back when I was reading the Thistlewood Farm blog and found this post.   She painted her steps!  And not only that, she painted them to look like there was a carpet runner on them.


I.was.smitten.


and then I thought, I can do that.


See you all, you don’t have to have the creative bug to have an original home. You just have to EXECUTE things that you see and you like. Most of my ideas I find somewhere else and then I “tweak” it to fit my home just perfect.


So, these were my front stairs before…

I love that they had added this to the house. It gives it a formal entrance, with no maintenance railing (love it!) and a little protection from the weather. But…the steps seemed a bit drab. So, I decided to use the information I found and put it to good use! Kari had great directions over at Thistlewood Farms, so you can check that out, or follow along with me:)


First, I grabbed a quart of the Rustoleum black paint. It works great for painting outside surfaces. I used the same color to paint my door as well. I used a paint brush and a small 4″ white foam roller to paint the large part of the stairs.

I heard a tip that if you put your tape down and paint the outside color over it first, it will seal it down and then when you add your top color it won’t seep through and leave you with blotches and an uneven line.

I must have done something wrong, because it didn’t work for me.


So then I took my little paint brush and cleaned up my line. It was a bit putsy but there was no way around it.

Better.


So here’s what my runner looked like…

t this point I should tell you I ran out of black paint, but I wanted to get the runner finished so I just kept going until I could get another quart from the hardware store the next day:) I hate when I can’t finish the job right away!


Now is the time to add the stripe…

At this point I skipped a few pictures, so I’ll explain as best as possible. I just ran a strip of painters tape the width of it on the edge of both sides. Then I left a strip the width of the tape in the middle and then put one more piece of tape on the other side. When I pulled it off, surprise! it looked like this. So, I had to clean it up again…

Then comes allie’s indecisiveness. I really wanted a tannish/gray paint color for the runner, but rustoleum only has limited colors, and I didn’t want to buy a $36 gallon of concrete paint, so I just used the pre-mixed colors. The ones you can’t pick the color. So, I started it with the cream Rustoleum paint, and then when I realized that I didn’t like it with my white house, I ran to the store and grabbed the gray. I then repeated steps 3 through 5:) and redid the whole runner/stripe.


Trial and error.


So, here’s what the stairs look like now.

The cream magically turned to gray!

I stenciled on a few numbers…just in case I forget what step I’m on:) Or to tell the kids what step to sit on in time out….the possibilities are endless!


And then you get this..

A durable rug that only cost $15.

so here’s before again..

and after..

So that’s them for now. My plan is to add a big white stripe around the edge up top to make it look like a big area rug up there! I’m just debating if I am going to keep the gray or splurge on a gallon of a color I love.

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