ok. so today, I went out and got some wood stain to stain the columns that i put next to my fireplace.
(and yes I know that they make concrete stain. but its more like paint and its been my experirnce that is peels off quite easily. something about the mold release that we use.) anyhow, I tried red mahogany and it looked too purple. so I took it back and went with another color that turned out to be too light. yet another trip back to wallymart.
finally got the right color. nice and dark like aged oak. I lucked out and it matched the beams in my house perfectly.
that was one of the things that i liked about my house when i first saw it, the beams are polyurethane foam (another product that i have worked with for years)
oh... yeah... about my house. its a single wide mobilehome that the previous owner cut the side off of and added several other rooms onto and then roofed over the entire thing and framed around the outside and overcladded. literally using the m-home as a prefab start. from the outside and inside you cant tell that its a mobile home that had been highly modified. most of the houses in my neighbohood are like this.
I call it a hybrid home.
back when it was built, it was considered an add-on like a covered porch or something, so now i still pay taxes as if it were a mobile home.
thanks to man1c for your reply. pics will be on the way. before and after.
one of my hands is now much browner, I do this sort of thing (working with chemichals and stains, resins, polymers, silicones etc) so much that i take for granted that i can just wash off with acetone, too bad I dont have any at home
my hasty nature... at work i also may have gloved up but then again maybe not, I usually come home with some sort of residue on me or my clothes.
if im cutting concrete pieces to size the dust gets all in my hair, my sweat reactivates the concrete and it kinda cures.. better than aqua-net
a real pita (pain in the ass)