2 car renovation adventure

[CT2012]

Tons of work on house the past year meant the 2-car attached garage got last priority (sadly...). Now it's time for it to get the proper attention, and it's a scramble to get it all done before cold weather sets in.

Some of the work I did myself, some of the work (esp. electrical) I subcontracted out. Quick list of things done: framed it out (2x4's are flush to the wall so as to minimize the loss of space), insulated R-9 foam block glued against cinderblock, then greenboard. Ran a dedicated 100 amp wire from the main service for future-proofing and will get a subpanel in there eventually. Put up a bunch of T8 lights, and finally slapped semi gloss white on walls & ceiling. This weekend is flooring adventure. I had a service come out and do a proper surface grind & prep a couple of weeks ago because I just ran outta time and couldn't do it myself, and man that was a mess but worth the money. They did a great job with the surface they had to work with (lot of imperfections, and some old concrete paint on there from years prior). Wish I waited to sealcoat my driveway after that grinding mess (white dust got tracked everywhere), but so it goes.

Pics of the renovation are from along the way, and pic of the primed floor is from today. Epoxy is 100% solids from Coratech. Am using their 100% solids pre-primer first, and the concrete lapped it right up. Tomorrow, weather permitting, will be putting down actual grey epoxy w/flakes, then followed by the gloss topcoat (also Coratech 100% solids) with that gripper stuff tossed in there (the manufacturer, who I spoke with, said don't mix it right in the gloss but instead sprinkle it).

Garage as staging area for dump runs:


Framing begins.


More framing.


Greenboard.


Greenboard up and walls painted.


Some parts of concrete floor pre-grinding. This photo was after a first quick pass of a grinder.


Today after first pass of V155 pre primer.

 

[CT2012]

Today's adventure with 100% solids epoxy, Coratech V430.

I have a newfound admiration for flooring companies who work with this type of product. This was not easy.

Coating was uniform, but when that pot life gets towards the end, it's a pain to work with that's for sure. The first half was a challenge, the 2nd half went much more smoothly.



The flakes came out nice (to me, anyway).



Couldn't have done any of this without the gazillion threads I've read here on garagejournal, there's a ton of experience here. Thank you!

Now I'm just praying weather gets warm enough during the day for this stuff to dry. It's getting cold out at night (high 40's). Am really pushing it with timing. Hopefully this coat will cure in reasonable time and I can get the final aliphatic top coat on there (Coratech V500, which is UV stable, importantly, since my garage is open often and in direct light).

After all that's done, then the baseboard molding goes in and then all the various storage stuff, workbench, etc. Plus some touch ups of regular paint's in order, esp. the lally columns (given how fast that epoxy was curing, I didn't care how much I got on the base of the columns since that can always get touched up with the white enamel).

 

[metalhead140]

Great start! What's your plans for it?

 

[classicJackets]

Very Nice! As long as the flake looks good to you, that's all that matters. None of us will actually see it, more than likely.
And that's one hell of a camera, whatever took the picture of that dime!

 

[CT2012]

thanks metalhead. steel lateral file cabinets that i have (scoured from classifieds over the course of a couple years) going in, likely some more lighting, and my workbench (surface is big solid oak door from our last house, which is cool). from there it'll be bit by bit. no general plan other than to keep things as neat as possible but still have it be a working garage and store my car (vette) which has been treated like a redheaded stepchild the past year or so. it's so embarrassing how i've treated my car (which used to religiously get washed weekly and waxed monthly, and was pristine by & large), but so it goes.

thanks classic, that was just a point & shoot nikon on macro setting. i contemplated just leaving the floor grey, but my concrete surface wasn't perfect and the flakes provide a good visual distraction. overall i'm pleased with the look. my main concern right now is that the darned thing properly dry & cure, since it's quickly getting cold out. last step is a topcoat of aliphatic clear gloss which is also uv stable. i have my garage open all the time until the temps get in the 30's/40's, with direct sun half the day, and that'll wreak havoc on the non-uv protected epoxy.

the thing i hate about this garage is the damned columns, but no gettin' around that. big chunk of the house is above 'em, so you might say it'd be a bad thing if i took 'em out... my last garage didn't have columns, thanks to some extensive reinforcing of joists that i did (that was a detached garage).

 

[aps63]

Looks great so far, keep it up. Plus, lets see some pictures of the Vette.

 

[CT2012]

aps, my vette is so filthy it's embarrassing. it sat outside for months, sometimes covered sometimes not. this past winter i was traveling during that brutal storm that hit in feb or so, and the cover blew off. the melting snow turned to ice and froze the cover half on the ground and half on the car. it was a sight that made me literally cringe as the taxi was pulling into the driveway, but not a damned thing i could do about it--not even pouring hot water on it. it was something like 3-4" thick sheet of ice, plus snow on top of that. was futile, basically. and so the car sat like that for almost 2 months or so until the spring hit. unreal. i hate this cold weather. want to move to florida....

 

[metalhead140]

Sounds good. Mostly mechanical work you're planning to do, or a bit of everything? Keep us updated as you fit it out.

 

[CT2012]

nah, just car storage and small project tinkering at this point. i'm trying to figure out a way to gently tell my wife she can't park her car in there. instead it'll be lawn tractor (equipped with plow attachment) and snowblower in her space this winter.

i'm almost done with house renovation so all the workshop dirty work and storage and is over, thank goodness.

 

[CT2012]

Got the clearcoat down last night after work. I wore a heavy duty respirator because this stuff stunk something FOUL! I mean nauseating strong. The paint shop suggested I sprinkle the anti-slip stuff by hand, but given how fine or powdery the stuff was it would've been a nightmare to do that. So, I mixed one package per gallon. I ended up using about a gallon and a 1/3 for the whole garage (20x20). Finished up around 8 pm, and weather forecast looked fine for the night and into today. By evening it warmed up considerably (high 60's) thank goodness.....and of course sitting down watching tv around 11 I heard rain coming down. Nightmare! Are weather forecasters ever accurate? Panicked, I closed garage door as close to the ground as possible, bottom seal was about 2" from slab. Rain got on the part of slab that extends out about 10" to the driveway from the door threshold. Oh well. Result is as of this a.m. some not too noticeable spots are a little bit milky white, but all in all not bad considering what could have gone wrong.

It's dry to the touch now and surface texture is nice, it has some grip to it. I could see it being a bit of a slippery situation if lots of slush/snow, but I'll have a mat down anyway so it won't be an issue for the day to day of winter life.

The best thing about the top coat mixed with the anti-slip stuff is it muted the finish just a tad, which for me is great because there were spots that were glassy smooth and others that had a bit of texture to it. That was likely due to epoxy soaking in more (even though it was pre-primed) and those texture spots were areas that had very heavy grinding activity and concrete was more rough. Now the finish is actually almost perfectly uniform from a gloss/texture standpoint (almost a satin look to it), so I'm really happy about how it came out.

Murphy's law moment: while I applied the gloss topcoat I was wearing socks and being super careful to not get the floor dirty. Towards the last few roller strokes I must've had a lapse and accidentally stepped on my driveway (where I had the epoxy cans and other materials placed on a tarp), and now there's a splotch of dirty footprint underneath the epoxy! No way I could've seen it while doing the job unless I looked very carefully.

Close up shot of the textured surface.



Bigger view of garage. Floor has a uniform sheen to it now, which I'm happy with.

 

[budmanm3]

Floors look good. Will you be painting the walls anything special? Maybe the poles too?

 

[CT2012]

After looking at another garagejournal member's wall (similar all white layout), I might go up a few feet in grey with a red or black band. Am on the fence with that, however, so I'd like to keep it neutral in case we ever sell the house, which is a possibility. Otherwise I'd paint the poles high gloss "Torch Red" to match my Vette!

 

[budmanm3]

Red poles with a red stripe on the wall would be sweet...

 

[James-W]

Looks really nice so far, can't wait to see it completely finished. I like the way the epoxy floor looks, but the prep work involved can really be intense. That has me scared off.

 

[CT2012]

It's a pain in the **** and a solid 3 consecutive day adventure: a full day of concrete prep, clean, and priming. Another day to do 1 coat of epoxy. Another day if you need two coats (depending on type of product used). And another day to do the clearcoat.

Weather can really disrupt the plans too, and you're screwed if you can't get the subsequent coats on within the specified time periods (the stuff I used was no more than 72 hours between coats).

I came really close to saying f&%! it at the beginning and doing some reasonable scraping and priming, and just putting down concrete paint for maybe a $100 or so. For my intended use, that probably would've been just fine.

But, thanks to garagejournal, I went nutso (relatively speaking).