What are some ways to spruce up a small concrete porch?

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Flyover

Trying not to screw things up worse
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Oh Hah
Looking for ideas.

Currently the small front porch (approx 4ft square; really more of a front step) is covered in nasty carpet. I figure under that carpet is just the concrete. Once the glue is removed, what can be done with the porch to make it look nicer?

Also, if anyone can explain why people glue carpet over concrete porches in the first place, I'm curious to know.
 
Keeps it in place, clean debris from footwear, easily swept or hosed off or pressure washed, no bending to P/U and shake clean.

Paint, resurface, texture.
 
Keeps it in place, clean debris from footwear, easily swept or hosed off or pressure washed, no bending to P/U and shake clean.
But it just looks so horrible. In my experience the thing that's most elegant is usually also the thing that looks best -- form follows function, as they say in design -- but maybe this is an exception...?
 
I've seen it done many times and it always looks like poop at some point.
Sometimes it's because the top surface started failing, often because of using salt on it, may have been painted and they got tired of repainting it.
It's not going to be much fun trying to scrape it all down to bare concrete again.
 
But it just looks so horrible. In my experience the thing that's most elegant is usually also the thing that looks best -- form follows function, as they say in design -- but maybe this is an exception...?

When your clothes, or vehicle, or appliances wear out, do you replace them, and would that be a function.

Everything has a life expectancy, and only we can, either prolong or shorten it, by our actions.
 
It's just my opinion of course but I think a carpeted porch looks horrible as soon as it's installed.
 
1st impressions, as in your front entry, can be lasting, as well as defining, and "sprucing up" can be fitting, as well as uplifting.
 
So, what are some things people do with concrete porches? I've seen videos where they tile over them with large ceramic tiles that look like wood...I'm not thrilled about that look. What else?
 
Just remember to be cognizant of the rise from tred to tred, so you do not create a trip hazard.
 
you can stain it, paint it, tile it, build a deck over it, or break it out and redo it or build a new deck. Those are the options I can think of without any parameters to constrain the outcome.

Also I would say that gluing down carpet is a financial decision, not and aesthetic decision. I could glue down carpet in under 30 min and I have plenty of carpet scraps that would cover that area. So total cost is glue and a few minutes.
 
I bought a carpet rem 30 years ago it was left over from a local country club where they did a veranda where the golfers walk thru with their spikes on back then. It was ridicules expensive back then and I got the leftovers pretty cheap and did my concrete landing and stairs gluing it down and also did the stairs. It looked great and still does to this day. It cut down on the slipperiness in the winter and may have saved my life even because once I stepped off it onto ice and slipped backwards and cracked my head into the bottom step and knocked myself out at 5am when it was about 20 degrees out. That padding I’m sure kept me form splitting my skull.



Beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder as they say. Back then it was the way to go along with closed in kitchens and brick fireplaces.

I have pressure washed that thing 50 times and it comes out looking new. I have no idea if they still make a product like that. I know the grass carpet stuff wears out in a few years.
 
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