Painted OSB floor.

[El_Diablo]

I have a 1.5 car garage with a full loft. This loft area is in the process of being transformed into my powder coating shop. The floor is currently bare OSB and as usual seems to hold a lot of dust. As such I'm looking for a cheap but effective solution to seal the floor and make it look nicer.

I have a good portion of a 5 gallon can of paint that was left by the previous owner. The issue is that the paint is white. Now the way I see that it could be good and bad. It might be horrible to keep clean but at the same time it should be easy to see any small dropped items and should also help with keeping the room nice and bright.

Has anyone painted an OSB shop or loft floor with any success? Has anyone done so with Bright colors such as a light grey, white or beige?

 

[Thunderbird]

I have used an oil-based battleship gray and it was easy to clean up and not too dark.

 

[spotco2]

Prime it first and paint it with floor paint. Regular latex usually will not hold up well to traffic.

Also depends a lot on specifically what kind of paint you have in that left over bucket.

 

[rsanter]

Use the paint you have like a primer as the bare wood will drink it in.
Then cover that with grey floor paint. It will hold up better

Bob

 

[astroracer]

I painted the OSB floor in my machine shop with light grey floor paint in 1992. It has held up well to all kinds of traffic and that says a lot what with all of the machining chips and shards that get tracked back and forth.
You will want to use an enamel. Latex will not hold up.
Mark

 

[draglink]

Make sure you use OIL BASE!! Latex will peel with foot traffic and stay sort of sticky due to its flexible properties.

 

[El_Diablo]

Looks like everything I have is Latex except for a single gallon of valspar no skid which says it only covers 75sqft in a single coat. I also found some sherwin williams waterborne dryfall arcylic which I'll likely be using to paint my cinder block walls in the garage with as it's listed as highly reflective.


That being said, I do have probably about a gallon and a half of wood floor sealer if I could use that over top of the latex? Could I still use the latex and paint over it with anything else to make it more durable? I'm a house paint newb.

 

[ScaldedDog]

I painted my OSB loft with a gray Valspar paint - probably latex - after a couple of coats if Kilz primer. It's worked great and looks nice, but it's a storage loft, not a work area. I wonder if gray garage floor paint would hold up on primed OSB?

Mark

 

[draglink]

you can use a latex primer if you must, but make sure you use an OIL BASE top coat. A latex paint with an oil top coat is still not going to be durable. Garage/porch oil base floor paint is perfect

 

[SteveCh]

Use the paint you have like a primer as the bare wood will drink it in.
Then cover that with grey floor paint. It will hold up better

Bob

Yes, this.....

 

[williammcneely]

Go to your local lowes and look at their display sheds outside. Then ask them what they paint these floors with. Whatever it is it seems to be very durable. The lowes store here has sheds that have been on display with the doors screwed open to the weather for several years and that coating has help up very well

 

[JimVonBaden]

Painted with primer then three coats of semi-gloss. Not high traffic, but I beat it up!

 

[joepowe8]

Without trying to highjack...
I need to know this also. I'll have osb as my only floor. Do you think epoxy coating with the flakes that people put in their garages would work.

 

[El_Diablo]

Some great advice guys. Unfortunately I'm having some issues finding oil based paint in anything larger than a quart here in Ohio. I might just end up putting a high gloss sealer on the OSB instead due to this issue.

 

[Falcon67]

I would use a good primer - oil base primer should be easy to find in 1 and 5 gallons. Then follow with garage/porch floor paint. I use gray floor paint (not epoxy) on my bench tops and it holds up really good. It's also easy to renew. We're shopping for a 24' enclosed race trailer and the first thing I'd do to it is primer the floor and follow with floor paint.

 

[coryfavreau]

Sherwin Williams sells a Porch & Floor Enamel right off the shelf by the gallon. They also make an industrial waterborne - single part enamel "Tredplex" that I've used on a variety of floor substrates. Either of those are decent choices, but like 95% of topcoats you'll have to reapply in wear spots eventually no matter what you pick.

 

[jbs]

Sherwin Williams sells a Porch & Floor Enamel right off the shelf by the gallon. They also make an industrial waterborne - single part enamel "Tredplex" that I've used on a variety of floor substrates. Either of those are decent choices, but like 95% of topcoats you'll have to reapply in wear spots eventually no matter what you pick.

x2. I used the Porch and Floor paint upstairs on the bare OSB. It actually looks pretty good, and has help up very well. I covered the ink printing on the OSB with Zinsser BIN first.

 

[JayCrash450]

You may not believe it but a guy at work has made some really cool desks and floors by simply covering osb with wood glue. Obtain a 5 gallon bucket of glue and go to town with the roller. The glue "flattens" out the surface, dries clear and gives it a nice sheen. Plus it's really cheap and easy to repair. I haven't done it myself but the results have looked really cool and durable.

This guy also took a bunch of old scaffold planks and laid them like you would a normal wood floor except the planks are 9 1/2" wide. Also came out really cool after he knocked them down flat and coated them with poly.

 

[El_Diablo]

The S&W's here in Ohio dont carry oil based gallons for some reason. I found some at TSC for $20 a gallon that I'll likely try.

 

[wrenchguy]

i'd just leave it b.

 

[El_Diablo]

I would but the floor just holds way to much dust and with it being my powder coating shop I would rather keep the dust and debris to a minimum when possible.

 

[Sneeze357]

In my barn I have a 100 year old wood floor that has never been covered with anything. It's really rough/dirty/torn up. I just painted it with a coat of oil based Kilz (soaked the floor) and then the cheapest grey latex floor paint Home Depot had.

I haven't really walked on it yet, so I don't know how it will hold up, but so far it looks very good. The floor paint covered really well. In 100sq ft I used about a gallon of kilz and half a gallon of floor paint. It hasn't had time to fully set up yet but scratching it with my nail it seems tough. I don't expect a miracle, but it's easy to keep an extra gallon around for touch ups.

I was amazed what the Kilz covered up in one coat. We'll see how this lasts. I tried latex Kilz first (already had some) and the stains on my old floor came right through. Oil based stopped it in one coat!

 

[pardonmyn00b]

I am painting my OSB basement floor. has anyone used vinyl flake with porch and deck paint.... I used the flake when I did epoxy in my garage but I did a top clear coat over it....

 

[Shiftless]

I know you’re asking about paint but have you considered laminate flooring? Some clearance patterns get down to 50 cents per square foot. It’s more durable than paint, easy to clean and really smooth so you could even damp mop if you had to in order to pick up dust. Some guys use it for work bench toppers.

 

[pardonmyn00b]

Yes, I was considering it... at this point it is not super hi traffic and more like a crawl space than basement.. just going to be using it for storage and light shop work. rolling on paint seemed a bit easier...

 

[nadogail]

Some great advice guys. Unfortunately I'm having some issues finding oil based paint in anything larger than a quart here in Ohio. I might just end up putting a high gloss sealer on the OSB instead due to this issue.

IMHO, Can you contact a marine paint supplier? Bilges need paint too.