Color concrete?

[don h]

I want to pour a small concrete pad (12 x 20) in my lawn. I heard it might be possible to color it green to blend with the yard. How is it done?

[SQLit]

add "color" during the mixing.

If your hand mixing it will be hard to make the color consistent. Most concrete companies have one old mixer for this. They will not use their production stuff cause it is messy.

I needed some red concrete for a electric line for a protective convert. I had 8 yards of concrete. I asked the concrete guys at Marvel how much I needed. Their calculation was 127 pounds. Because of the way the color was sold I ended up with 135 pounds of color. Dumped all of it into the mixer on the job added 10 gallons of water and mixed like hell for 10 minutes. It came out the prettiest pink that you ever saw. Not even close to red.

A grass green will take a bunch of color, good luck

[Travis Jordan]

Did you use grey or white concrete? Maybe their color forumulation was for grey.

[xrongor]

paint it green.

randy

[homeowner]

Lowes tile grout section has some bags of those tiny sparking pieces that also grow in the dark. They are supposed to mix in the grout and give a nice grout. Maybe you can put some of in part of your concrete and mix with those pieces and pour on top of the concrete.

They are many different color to choose from.

[AutoTracer]

Mixing in the color will yeild the most durable result but you may not get the color you want without some experimenting and careful measuring. This is also the most labor intensive. You may need to add a considerable amount of die to the mixer.

Transparent stains give a muted color, some variation based on the surface conditions and mix of the concrete and can be darkened with additional coats or blended with other colors for a faux finish look. These can be sprayed, rolled, brushed or ragged onto the concrete. Most of these are liquid but some are powder you sprinkle on after etching with acid.

Solid stain, concrete paint or epoxy paint all will give a fully saturated color of predictable hue but it will look like paint and may need retouching in a couple years.

If you want to blend into your lawn, try a base caot of transparent green stain with splotches of brown, sandstone or terracotta for variation and pattern.

[jeffc]

It's easy to stain after setting.