How can I spruce up a concrete patio?

[morningpaper]

I have a concrete patio and ideally I'd like it to be white-ish and gleaming

Sadly I can't lay marble over it as my budget does not stretch that far

How can I spruce it up for less than £100? Is there some sort concrete resurfacer available? I've used concrete paint before and it's crap so don't want to try that.

glue glitter on it

You can buy garage floor paint - is that the same as concrete paint? - and paint it (and then buy a power washer to scrub it down every time someone dares to walk across it). Depending on how big it is, you could tile it for £100.

concrete is horrible though, couldn't you break it up and make a new one out of something else?

Could you deck over it? I know decking is a bit passe, but it's more attractive than concrete IMO

you could have the decking SPRUNG so it doubles up as a dance floor!

mitchy

your ideas are not brilliant TBH although I like the glitter idea

Decking would be about £500 - it's 3m by 6m. I've laid decking before but don't have that much money for this.

At the mo I am thinking about applying a concrete acid stain in a light colour followed by a concrete sealant

Maybe I should put glitter in the sealant...

Tiling would cost too much and I HATE tiling, it is BORING

(I mean DOING it, I agree it looks nice)

Can you get rid of the concrete completely and do a nice herringbone brickwork instead? Even if it was a nice herringbone brick border round the concrete it might make it more attractive.

I appreciate that's not white and gleaming...

NO i can't do that for less than £100 and I DO have children to look after you know

OK OK, so I'm no architectural gardner... I'm still thinking, albeit aloud and therefore not very practically.

keeps brilliant ideas to Self

We use a power washer on ours and they come up looking the colour they did when they were new.

the top paint on here looks quite promising

Would you like to swap it for our 1950s crazy paving patio?

No. Thought not.

one of my MANY brilliant ideas:

what about putting some sort of edging stuff round the, er, edges and then filling it with little white stones? it could double up as a litter tray for entire neighbourhood and you might get some sort of community award from the cats protection league?

It is already edged by decaying red brick walls

That paint sits on top which is not as good really as the stuff which sinks in (stains) because it needs a lot of repainting

I am favouring the stain-plus-sealant approach I think

if decking is passe what is more de rigeur? we have a concrete patio on the house we are moving to and i was all set to replace it with decking in abotu 100 years when we have some money. in the meantime i thought about just getting some nice pots and putting some plants in them to detract the eye from the mingingness of the patio itself!