Concrete can be stained. I am writing about a step or two beyond Bubba parking his leaky '75 Chevy with the achy breaky cylinder head gasket and oil pan drip. As we have a new house with a 350 foot snake sunning strip/driveway, it fell upon me to investigate our options.
Staining concrete is done by chemical reaction. Mixed with acid are minerals. You spray the stuff on with a garden sprayer. If the sprayer doesn't blow up, (or does), and you are downwind, you then can get some on your legs. This will be identified by the burning sensation. Or you can get a snoot full, a lung full, or an eye full, all while your overspray kills all vegetation alongside the concrete. Your shoes could melt and stick you there while the snakes come to investigate what you did.
Acid costs about $65 a gallon. Then there's the SEALER which costs as much or more. I'd need a tank trunk full.
As an experiment, I carefully stained the cement walkway behind our house. After the hissing stopped, after I neutralized and power hosed, it looked like Tony The Tiger's back. I then tried several colors. The Tan turned out orange. The Wheat turned out oranger. I put greater concentrations on. I mixed colors. Finally, we have what appear to be rust stains. Luckily, it more or less matches some of the stones we have in our wall. I know when to leave well enough alone.
As for the driveway, well, we found a per-fesh-o-nal. He's lowered his price to about a third of what others have quoted. My skepticism is rust colored now.
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