Pebble Step
In this tutorial we will turn an ugly concrete step onto something a bit more decorative.
Things you will need:
1. Tile Glue
2. Spackle Knife
3. Grout
4. Pebbles.
This step in our basement is plain ugly. Because I was going to redo the basement floor, I wanted to fix the step first. The basement floor tutorial is coming up soon. The builder installed the french drain into the step but never covered the drain up cosmetically. It looks crappy. I considered covering the drain or tiling, but tiling would involve too much work because the concrete on the step is warped, chipped and uneven. Straightening that out would be a major pain in the neck. I needed something appealing, yet something that wouldn't require straightening. So I thought of pebbles. When I priced pebble tiles, it was a bit too much. After all it's just a basement. Besides, pebble tiles are still square tiles and cutting would be required. I didn't want to deal with that so I went to a dollar store and purchased 16 bags of various size pebbles. Then I went to home depot and purchased some tile adhesive and some red grout. (I got done with this project a while ago, but the grout is yet to be put on. I was lazy.)
I laid out the the pebbles by size and color and tried to create some sort of pattern. I tried to use the flatter pieces but considering the fact that we barely use that door, it didn't really matter. I drew the pattern on the floor, laid out the pebbles to get some ideas...
With your spackle knife apply the glue generously. Don't cover a large area because laying out pebbles stone by stone takes a while. You don't want the glue to dry by the time you're finished. Go over the glue with a special grooved trowel (see my bathroom sink tutorial). Now start laying out the pebbles. Push them into the glue so that the glue surround the pebble half way up.
Keep going.
And going:-)
And you're done. I let it dry for a long time (few weeks) because of close proximity to the water in the french drain. I have yet to apply grout but that's easy and you should already be familiar with grout if you have read my bathroom sink tutorial. It is very important that you do not forget to seal the grout. And PLEASE PLEASE use an environmentally safe sealer.
Hope you have fun with this. If you have any questions, suggestions, feedback, do not hesitate to email me. If you like me to do a tutorial that is not listed here, do contact me as well. If I can, I will post one. You can leave feedback to this tutorial in my BLOG