Epoxy Floor Color - Why no dark?

[BMEdoc]

Dear Gents,

I've been lurking here for a while, but this is my first post. I just purchased my first home in April, and have been planning out the garage. Epoxy flooring is definitely on the top of my list, and I've been reading all about it; especially how important the prep is.

My question is this... for quite a while, I had been planning on a dark blue, specifically Quikrete's midnight blue. I thought that the dark blue with a variety of flakes looks very nice in all of the promo material that they have. The odd thing, is that on this site it seems as if nobody has a dark colored floor at all!

Is there any reasoning behind this, or am I missing something simple? Should I go with my initial instinct, or is there a good reason to go with a lighter floor? If it matters, this will be a working garage where I'm restoring my 1940 Packard, and working on my 07 Mustang GT daily driver. This won't be a show room at all...

PS... great sale at Lowe's this weekend for anyone waiting on quikrete.

 

[csp]

I want light in my garage. A dark floor/walls/ceiling defeats that purpose.

 

[Kebrock]

It would **** up a lot of light and show TONS of dirt.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Exactly. It's dark, doesn't reflect much light up, is harder to keep clean, and also easier to lose stuff when you drop it.

A dark floor is fine for a room where you relax, but -- usually -- you want something light where you work.

 

[BMEdoc]

Well, that makes a lot of sense, especially since I'm planning on packing the garage full of fluorescent lights... Light colored epoxy it is!

 

[Edger]

The difference is like a car on a hill pointing his lights at you on high beam in the night as you walk along the pavement which blinds you, compared to the same thing happening in the middle of the day when it is just annoying. The only difference is the amount of reflected light in between you and the headlights. Nil in the night, masses of it in daytime.

If you paint your floor a light color there is lots of reflected light upwards bouncing in all directions from the overhead lights hitting the floor and there is a very big difference in the amount of reflected light from a light grey compared to a mid/dark grey floor.

Also with poor reflected light everything has a dark shadow underneath and can look more two-dimensional, with good light reflection the shadows are vague and it is easier to see everything.

I did a heap of work on this in the early 90's comparing warehouses with black floors from rubber marks to light grey epoxy floors which transformed the areas from a dungeon look to something with a bit of life.

Not saying that your blue with lots of flecks would be that dark, maybe, maybe not.

 

[Diverbill45]

Dark colors will make your area look smaller. Brighter colors make the same area look larger, just like a room in a home.

All the previous replys are ture, but for the main reason I would never have a dark colored floor, ........... if you happen to drop something small on the floor, such as a small bolt, screw, washer, etc., you're going to spend more time looking for it , than if the floor was a light color. Up until a few years ago I had 20/20 vision, but age takes its toll and I now want all the light I can get. It'll happen to you also, ............ just give it time. Mother nature and age always have their own way of letting us know that we're not as tough as we think we are.

Right now I'm in the process of redoing my entire shop and I completely changed my lighting to T8 lights and added a few more, than I had before and am painting the walls and ceiling a gloss white and have even thought about doing the floor in an off shade of white also.

I just noticed you live in Richmond, Va. I was born and raised there and went to Douglas Freeman high school, out in the west end of town. Man that was many years ago.