How to Stencil a Concrete Patio

When you live in a 1,000 square foot home in Florida, you plan to spend a lot of time outside. So, in trying to make a mini oasis, we figured out how to stencil a concrete patio and it was a total gamechanger in our hipster backyard brewery vibe.

The back patio of our home is a good size to entertain, but it was obviously once a carport and has the gross old stains and cracks to prove it. Painting and stenciling was one of those things on the ‘neverending to-do list’ as Alex calls it, but we’re in the process of getting a HELOC (home equity line of credit) so knew an appraisal was coming up soon and bumped it up on the list as a project that is both low-cost and effort but high reward.

It made a huge difference, it took only one sunny weekend to get done, and is 100% something I would recommend for anyone wanting to freshen up their patio before summer.

Tools & Materials

• Behr Porch & Patio paint – We used black as the base color (Dark Secret by Behr), and the untinted white color as the stencil color
• Large roller for rough surfaces
• Small roller for rough surfaces
• Broom
• Stencil
• Pressure washer (optional)
• Paper towel or baby wipes
• Some kind of concrete sealer

Get it fresh and clean

Start by giving the whole area a really good clean. Ideally, you’d use a pressure washer and go turbo on that bad boy to get rid of any old paint, spills, dirt, etc. but you could also just try to hose it really well. Let it dry and sweep the whole thing to get rid of any last-minute dirt or leaves.

Put down your base coat

This part isn’t very exciting, but use your roller (and an extension pole if you want to save your back) and roll on the base layer over the whole patio area. The porch paint is a little thicker than regular paint so you’ll probably be surprised by how much you use, but it does get really good coverage. If you’ve got fairly rough concrete like we do, it’s important to get rollers made for rough surfaces because it’s much better at getting in all the cracks and crevices and will make your job much easier.

Now the fun part, start stenciling

Look, if I’m honest, I went into this with an ‘it’s going to be a rustic, imperfect look’ approach. I knew the concrete was rough which would make it hard to get a really crisp stencil line, I didn’t have a whole lot of time, and in all honesty, I have a toddler so my give-a-shit level is relatively low in general.

All that being said, stenciling is a really easy process, it can just be tedious. I started up in one corner and went across a whole row, then I went down to the next row and back the way I came, making a big old Nokia snake out of it.

I wrote a blog post here going into detail about how I used this same stencil in our laundry room, and in that room I used painters tape to stick the stencil to the ground as I rolled, but on the concrete I didn’t bother.

So if you’re going for our look, just put the stencil where you’re starting and hold it down with one hand as you roll over it.

HERE’S THE MOST CRITICAL PART OF STENCILING, THOUGH: Don’t add too much paint to your roller. You want to either only load up the paint lightly onto your roller, or have a piece of scrap wood or cardboard nearby to roll off some paint onto before your stencil.

This helps reduce bleeding under the stencil, which gives you a cleaner finish.

Another bonus tip

With this thick porch paint, the paint can build up pretty quickly on the stencil which, again, can cause bleeding underneath.

If possible, order two of the same stencil design so you can switch between them and let the paint dry on one while you use the other. Even with this method, stop every couple of rows and use paper towel or baby wipes to wipe the paint off the back and you’ll get a much better finish.

Trust me, you’ll be able to tell when you need to stop and clean the stencil because the design will start to get a little fuzzy.

Seal the concrete

By this point, your patio is looking amazing and you’re already picturing the margaritas being sipped out there. But, you may have a couple of touchup spots to fix, so do that first.

Once that’s dry, it’s time to seal it with concrete sealer the same way you applied the base coat. It should be dry and ready to walk over in about 24 hours. Enjoy!

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