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Acid Staining for Garden Walk way

by Melinda

We have a very old yard and home in a historical district so, any remodeling, ANY remodeling or changes are highly monitored and must be approved. As many of you know, remodeling to period standards can be very expensive.

The outside of our home opens to a cottage garden and old stone goldfish pond with stone slab walk way that goes deeper into yard where there's a stoned area for eating/parties/gathering among the magnolia trees.

The problem was that during the 1950's, when the aluminum overhangs, side garages etc were all the rage, a concrete walk way was added to the back of the house (the concrete of course was better than the plastic grass carpet we moved from it), extending the full width of the house from the back door to the driveway-which was ugly, to say the least.

Acid Staining was the absolute perfect solution. Digging out the concrete, paying to haul it off etc was a major project in itself, too time consuming and too expensive. We tested an area with general color tones and patterns to "blend" in with the slate and slab stone paths that gave the back yard so much charm.

The idea is not to "match" anything with acid stain in a situation like this, but to find a very nice look that blends in, that really does accentuate the decor of everything around it.

The project was approved! If you've ever had to meet stringent approval standards for projects, you know how hard historical committees are, so I hope this shows how acid staining can be practical, relatively easy, cost effective, and it looks great.

So, whether you are going to do the acid staining or if you are merely trying to understand the basics of it and consider options for your home or business that you will eventually find a subcontractor to do..acid staining is great in all categories!