We recently decided to rip up the carpet out of our dining room living room and have the concrete stained with an acid stain. We are somewhat pleased with the results. In hindsight, we should have realized that our slab wasn't in good enough condition to be acid-stained. I expected a high gloss finish, and it isn't glossy at all. I think that would really make a difference in the final look.

Here are some pics of the boys working. Scroll down and you can see pics of the finished product.

That's the 10yo cutting the carpet away and the 3yo rolling it up. What good workers they are!

 Much to my mother's chagrin, the boys and I ripped up the entire living room without my husband. We wanted to give him a headstart for cleaning and prepping the floors. Its not the best thing to do while pregnant.

Our 10yo was a big help in scrubbing up the carpet pad glue around the edges of the walls. It took him and my husband several hours to finish. I am so thankful to have a hard-working son.

Here's the final product. It looks dirty and in serious need of a mopping. But its clean. The white spots are where my husband had to patch the concrete slab, they didn't react with the acid the same way as the original foundation. We knew about that to begin with, but we just didn't expected it to look this way.

So, do a bunch of research before you try this project.