• You can stain hardwood floors, like this one, a variety of colors from dark to light.Close-up wooden texture to background image by Ragnarocks from Fotolia.com
  
  Whether your floors are hardwood or concrete, staining your floors can give them new life and create a brand new look in your room. Floor stains come in a variety of colors and types. Some stains will simply add color. Other stains include polyurethane or other elements to help finish your floors.
  
  

Keep It Simple

• For a basic look, keep it simple and use a single-color stain for your whole floor. Pick up a standard color stain from your local home improvement store, or create your own color stain by mixing stain colors from the company or line of stains. To make sure you're staining your floor a color you'll love when you're finished, apply a coat of stain to the same type of surface before you apply it to your floor. For example, if your hardwood floors are made of white oak, pick up a piece of white oak, stain it and let it dry to make sure the color is what you want. Different woods and materials stain differently.
  
  

Create a Design

• If you're looking for a more unusual look, create a design on your floor. Use masking tape to mark off a design on wood floors that have been sanded back to the original wood or basic concrete. You can use multiple stains on the same floor, but keep each color separate within your design. If you're installing a brand new plank wood floor, use two different colors of hardwood from the same manufacturer and alternate the plank color as you lay it, or create an unusual design, such as a star, using the planks.
  
  

Acid on Concrete

• Create a textured look on your concrete floor by adding acid as part of your staining process. Hydrochloric acid is typically used to obtain variation during concrete staining. A variety of earth-tones and deeper colors, like purples and reds, are possible using acid stains, and more color options become available as the selection of concrete dyes grows. Concrete stain becomes a permanent part of your floor and won't fade or chip over time.