I have been wanting to redo my garage floor since we purchased the house 3 years ago. Other repairs had precedence over the garage floor but I couldn't stand it any longer and the girlfriend went out of town to work for a month so I jumped on the chance to redo the garage before she got back!
I looked into epoxy but the damage on my floor from years of NY winters had exposed the aggregate under where the wheels of the vehicles are and the cost was going to be about $8-$9 a sq ft and at about 800 sq feet it was quite costly. I lurked around here for a bit and did research and decided on plastic solid tiles. I am so glad I did not go with the Epoxy. This tile is really sharp and I just love how clean the garage is now.
I started by emptying the garage and then mixed about 8 bags of Sakrete top n bond and roughly filled in the damaged concrete. I waited until the next morning when it was firmed up but still not fully set and then scraped the high points off with a hand scrapper. It leveled it off good enough for the plastic tile.
Then it was time to get to cleaning and painting the ceiling and walls. That was the worse part of the whole project and I luckily found a painter who had a day to spare and we worked together and knocked that off in a day and it was a vast improvement! Below is the before and after paint. The big boxes are new cabinets from New Age that came early.
Then it was on to putting the floor down. I kinda messed up because I was in a hurry and ordered the imported Nitro Diamond tiles. I had submitted a quote to Racedeck and didn't hear back that day and was in a hurry to get the flooring here so I could get this done before the better half returns. I saw the Nitro tiles for $2.49 a sq ft and ordered them later that night as I needed to get them. Low and behold Racedeck emailed back the next morning with a quote that had I been more patient I would have gone with those instead. Oh well. Completely on me but hey, the Nitro tiles look fantastic but we'll see how they look next spring after a good ole NY winter!
So I rolled out landscaping fabric and started putting them down
Even after a few rows, I was starting to like it. So about 6 hours later I had them down except for the pieces that need trimmed. It was so nice to be able to walk in the garage and up into the house without tracking copious amounts of dust! I unpacked the cabinets which created a pickup load of cardboard and placed them where they will be going. They will be mounted this weekend.
I was pretty happy with the results and for the first time in my 58 year long life, I can roll my toolbox on my floor! I took out the vintage 1960's garage door opener and installed a new one and it was so nice being able to roll the tool chest to where I was working. I can see these tiles are going to mark up but I am still thrilled with the end result. It's a look you can't get with epoxy and it was about 1/3 of the cost for the condition my floor was in. This forum helped a lot as I was lurking around so I wanted to share. My neighbor said it looks nice enough to live in and I said when the better half gets home and sees it I might have to LOL.
Oh and here is that vintage opener. What a beast! It weighed a ton and the rails are like 1/4" thick! The remote gave up and I couldn't find one that would work with it plus no safety features so time to upgrade.
I looked into epoxy but the damage on my floor from years of NY winters had exposed the aggregate under where the wheels of the vehicles are and the cost was going to be about $8-$9 a sq ft and at about 800 sq feet it was quite costly. I lurked around here for a bit and did research and decided on plastic solid tiles. I am so glad I did not go with the Epoxy. This tile is really sharp and I just love how clean the garage is now.
I started by emptying the garage and then mixed about 8 bags of Sakrete top n bond and roughly filled in the damaged concrete. I waited until the next morning when it was firmed up but still not fully set and then scraped the high points off with a hand scrapper. It leveled it off good enough for the plastic tile.
Then it was time to get to cleaning and painting the ceiling and walls. That was the worse part of the whole project and I luckily found a painter who had a day to spare and we worked together and knocked that off in a day and it was a vast improvement! Below is the before and after paint. The big boxes are new cabinets from New Age that came early.
Then it was on to putting the floor down. I kinda messed up because I was in a hurry and ordered the imported Nitro Diamond tiles. I had submitted a quote to Racedeck and didn't hear back that day and was in a hurry to get the flooring here so I could get this done before the better half returns. I saw the Nitro tiles for $2.49 a sq ft and ordered them later that night as I needed to get them. Low and behold Racedeck emailed back the next morning with a quote that had I been more patient I would have gone with those instead. Oh well. Completely on me but hey, the Nitro tiles look fantastic but we'll see how they look next spring after a good ole NY winter!
So I rolled out landscaping fabric and started putting them down
Even after a few rows, I was starting to like it. So about 6 hours later I had them down except for the pieces that need trimmed. It was so nice to be able to walk in the garage and up into the house without tracking copious amounts of dust! I unpacked the cabinets which created a pickup load of cardboard and placed them where they will be going. They will be mounted this weekend.
I was pretty happy with the results and for the first time in my 58 year long life, I can roll my toolbox on my floor! I took out the vintage 1960's garage door opener and installed a new one and it was so nice being able to roll the tool chest to where I was working. I can see these tiles are going to mark up but I am still thrilled with the end result. It's a look you can't get with epoxy and it was about 1/3 of the cost for the condition my floor was in. This forum helped a lot as I was lurking around so I wanted to share. My neighbor said it looks nice enough to live in and I said when the better half gets home and sees it I might have to LOL.
Oh and here is that vintage opener. What a beast! It weighed a ton and the rails are like 1/4" thick! The remote gave up and I couldn't find one that would work with it plus no safety features so time to upgrade.