Well hello, I didn't see you there.
So the idea on the garage makeover is to have the space nice, tidey, and clean for working on cars. I'm kinda OCD so I feel so much better when it's clean. I painted the walls and base boards which were some off whitish color using an exterior semi gloss white. Just some $17 a gallon stuff from Wal-Mart. You use exterior and semi gloss because it doesn't absorb water or other liquids and is easy to wipe off. Below is a pic of the new color covering up the old stuff.
After hours and hours of searching and reading on garagejournal.com and other sites about which epoxy kit to choose, I decided on the Rustoleum PROFESSIONAL kit. The key is the PROFESSIONAL version. It's solvent based unlike the water based stuff they sell at Lowe's and Home Depot. You have to order it online. I ordered all my stuff from garagetoys.com I haven't found a bad review on the professional version. Guys have had it for 5-7+ years with no issues at all. My friend used the regular version from Home depot and it worked well also but I wanted to make sure that nothing would happen to it in the future such as bubbling or hot tire pick up. The garage will be used for fabrication and work so I don't want some ****** fluid ruining the floor because it WILL get used. I think the key to making it last is proper prep work and the clear coat. Follow the directions to the T and it will come out great.
Now to the good stuff.
Here's what I did- 2 coats of epoxy with flakes and then clear with anti slip. I used 2 kits of epoxy after careful reading because # 1, it will make sure you get good coverage as the first coat usually doesn't get perfectly even results, and #2, it really strengthens the floor by having double the epoxy. I went with the anti slip because if you research, you'll read that people say the epoxy feels like an ice rink with the slightest amount of water. After doing the floor and testing the water slippage amount (what?), You'd be crazy not to use this stuff. The kit comes with it's own anti slip material but it's aluminum oxide and people said that if you're going to be crawling around on your back, hands and knees, not to use it because it will eat your *** up. I chose Shark Grip by H&C because it's gotten nothing but good reviews, it's cheap, and it provides excellent grip without being sharp because of the way it's made. It's a bunch of super tiny spheres that look like power they're so small. The bottle I got was 3.2oz which was perfect I think for my 21' x 19.5' garage.
Here's a breakdown of what products you'll need. I think all my stuff came out to like $400-$450 for everything you'll need.
2 boxes of Rustoleum professional epoxy kit. I got light gray-it relfects light better in the garage.
1 box of Rustoleum professional clear coat
3 3" brushes for cutting in each step of epoxy and clear coat before rolling
2 5 gallon buckets
1 drill
1 drill mounted mixing tool ( you WILL need this. The instructions say to mix for 2-5 minutes POWER MIXING. You don't want to do this by hand.)
a couple shop lights for lighting during the clear coat application. (it gets hard to see where you've been so the lights show you.)
3 roller trays
1 9" roller ( I stress the 9" as the 12" rollers don't fit in the trays)
3 contractor grade 3/8" NAP rollers ( get the ones I have here from Sherwin Williams. Alot of people have found that this is the roller to use with the solvent based stuff. Alot of other brands start delaminating and leave fibers in your epoxy and clear. The contractor grade worked flawlessly on my stuff.)
3-4oz per 400SF of Shark Grip anti slip (can be bought at Sherwin Williams)
1 Gallon per 400SF of degreaser (the behr stuff I used was nice and worked well)
1 gallon per 200SF of muriatic acid in liquid form (The box I got had two 1 gallon jugs in it.)
1 long threaded roller handle
1 threaded wire brush
1 floor squeegie
1 plastic watering can
some mixing sticks
face mask
If you have an old coating like I did (uuuughhhhh) you'll also need some kind of floor stripper. I used this stuff for $22 a gallon from HD. It's the gnarliest stuff they have and worked pretty good. I had to buy 6 gallons I think to do my whole floor. I just used a little bucket, a 3" brush and a fine edged 4' long floor scraper from Harbor Freight. It's the one with the replacable 4" blades. It's not on the website for some reason.
Here are some pics off the materials:
Before I could start, I had to find a place for all my stuff currently in the garage as well as a place where all the non car related stuff for the house will live in the future. ( The garage will only be for car stuff.)
So I picked this shed up from Home Depot on sale for only $260-It's the Newport model. It's 10' wide, 8' deep and 6' high in the center. I had to level the ground in the back yard, build the floor frame and then assemble it. Came out perfect. Putting those walls up by myself was interesting...
Here are the steps:
Assuming you don't have any current floor coating-
Sweep the floor VERY well
Degrease the floor following the can's directions using the roller handle and wire brush- rinse completely 3 times and squeegie off the last coating of water. Use the plastic watering can for mixing and application. Use a face mask during this.
Etch the floor using a 4 to 1 ratio of muriatic acid to water using the roller handle and wire brush- rinse completely 3 times and squeegie off the last coating of water. Use the plastic watering can for mixing and application. Use a face mask during this.
Let Dry overnight.
1st coat of epoxy
wait 16 hours+
2nd coat of epoxy- during this step, scatter your flakes that come with the kit as you go to the desired saturation level. DO NOT mix them in with the epoxy. You throw them on top after you coat. (each kit comes with 2 bags. I ended up using all 4 of mine as I like the heavy broadcast of flakes. I think it turned out PERFECT.) Now, some people would leave it at this step and you can, but form everything I've read, the clear coat is the way to go. I noticed that a decent amount of the flakes were half suspended in the epoxy and the clear coat sealed them in.
wait 16 hours
Apply clear coat. In this step you DO mix in the anti slip when you're mixing the 2 parts together.
wait 16 hours for foot traffic, wait 4 days for heavy things and cars.
Donezo.
Here are some pics of the floor stripping in the middle, towards the end, and all clean and after degreasing.
Here's a picture of the floor after etching. Notice how the acid leaves the brush marks.
Edging the first coat
First coat done
2nd coat and flakes done.
Clear coat and anti slip- Notice the gloss difference and deepness of shine.
Water beading properties after clear coat
Close up of the anti slip
Garage all done and ready to move in.
So the idea on the garage makeover is to have the space nice, tidey, and clean for working on cars. I'm kinda OCD so I feel so much better when it's clean. I painted the walls and base boards which were some off whitish color using an exterior semi gloss white. Just some $17 a gallon stuff from Wal-Mart. You use exterior and semi gloss because it doesn't absorb water or other liquids and is easy to wipe off. Below is a pic of the new color covering up the old stuff.
After hours and hours of searching and reading on garagejournal.com and other sites about which epoxy kit to choose, I decided on the Rustoleum PROFESSIONAL kit. The key is the PROFESSIONAL version. It's solvent based unlike the water based stuff they sell at Lowe's and Home Depot. You have to order it online. I ordered all my stuff from garagetoys.com I haven't found a bad review on the professional version. Guys have had it for 5-7+ years with no issues at all. My friend used the regular version from Home depot and it worked well also but I wanted to make sure that nothing would happen to it in the future such as bubbling or hot tire pick up. The garage will be used for fabrication and work so I don't want some ****** fluid ruining the floor because it WILL get used. I think the key to making it last is proper prep work and the clear coat. Follow the directions to the T and it will come out great.
Now to the good stuff.
Here's what I did- 2 coats of epoxy with flakes and then clear with anti slip. I used 2 kits of epoxy after careful reading because # 1, it will make sure you get good coverage as the first coat usually doesn't get perfectly even results, and #2, it really strengthens the floor by having double the epoxy. I went with the anti slip because if you research, you'll read that people say the epoxy feels like an ice rink with the slightest amount of water. After doing the floor and testing the water slippage amount (what?), You'd be crazy not to use this stuff. The kit comes with it's own anti slip material but it's aluminum oxide and people said that if you're going to be crawling around on your back, hands and knees, not to use it because it will eat your *** up. I chose Shark Grip by H&C because it's gotten nothing but good reviews, it's cheap, and it provides excellent grip without being sharp because of the way it's made. It's a bunch of super tiny spheres that look like power they're so small. The bottle I got was 3.2oz which was perfect I think for my 21' x 19.5' garage.
Here's a breakdown of what products you'll need. I think all my stuff came out to like $400-$450 for everything you'll need.
2 boxes of Rustoleum professional epoxy kit. I got light gray-it relfects light better in the garage.
1 box of Rustoleum professional clear coat
3 3" brushes for cutting in each step of epoxy and clear coat before rolling
2 5 gallon buckets
1 drill
1 drill mounted mixing tool ( you WILL need this. The instructions say to mix for 2-5 minutes POWER MIXING. You don't want to do this by hand.)
a couple shop lights for lighting during the clear coat application. (it gets hard to see where you've been so the lights show you.)
3 roller trays
1 9" roller ( I stress the 9" as the 12" rollers don't fit in the trays)
3 contractor grade 3/8" NAP rollers ( get the ones I have here from Sherwin Williams. Alot of people have found that this is the roller to use with the solvent based stuff. Alot of other brands start delaminating and leave fibers in your epoxy and clear. The contractor grade worked flawlessly on my stuff.)
3-4oz per 400SF of Shark Grip anti slip (can be bought at Sherwin Williams)
1 Gallon per 400SF of degreaser (the behr stuff I used was nice and worked well)
1 gallon per 200SF of muriatic acid in liquid form (The box I got had two 1 gallon jugs in it.)
1 long threaded roller handle
1 threaded wire brush
1 floor squeegie
1 plastic watering can
some mixing sticks
face mask
If you have an old coating like I did (uuuughhhhh) you'll also need some kind of floor stripper. I used this stuff for $22 a gallon from HD. It's the gnarliest stuff they have and worked pretty good. I had to buy 6 gallons I think to do my whole floor. I just used a little bucket, a 3" brush and a fine edged 4' long floor scraper from Harbor Freight. It's the one with the replacable 4" blades. It's not on the website for some reason.
Here are some pics off the materials:
Before I could start, I had to find a place for all my stuff currently in the garage as well as a place where all the non car related stuff for the house will live in the future. ( The garage will only be for car stuff.)
So I picked this shed up from Home Depot on sale for only $260-It's the Newport model. It's 10' wide, 8' deep and 6' high in the center. I had to level the ground in the back yard, build the floor frame and then assemble it. Came out perfect. Putting those walls up by myself was interesting...
Here are the steps:
Assuming you don't have any current floor coating-
Sweep the floor VERY well
Degrease the floor following the can's directions using the roller handle and wire brush- rinse completely 3 times and squeegie off the last coating of water. Use the plastic watering can for mixing and application. Use a face mask during this.
Etch the floor using a 4 to 1 ratio of muriatic acid to water using the roller handle and wire brush- rinse completely 3 times and squeegie off the last coating of water. Use the plastic watering can for mixing and application. Use a face mask during this.
Let Dry overnight.
1st coat of epoxy
wait 16 hours+
2nd coat of epoxy- during this step, scatter your flakes that come with the kit as you go to the desired saturation level. DO NOT mix them in with the epoxy. You throw them on top after you coat. (each kit comes with 2 bags. I ended up using all 4 of mine as I like the heavy broadcast of flakes. I think it turned out PERFECT.) Now, some people would leave it at this step and you can, but form everything I've read, the clear coat is the way to go. I noticed that a decent amount of the flakes were half suspended in the epoxy and the clear coat sealed them in.
wait 16 hours
Apply clear coat. In this step you DO mix in the anti slip when you're mixing the 2 parts together.
wait 16 hours for foot traffic, wait 4 days for heavy things and cars.
Donezo.
Here are some pics of the floor stripping in the middle, towards the end, and all clean and after degreasing.
Here's a picture of the floor after etching. Notice how the acid leaves the brush marks.
Edging the first coat
First coat done
2nd coat and flakes done.
Clear coat and anti slip- Notice the gloss difference and deepness of shine.
Water beading properties after clear coat
Close up of the anti slip
Garage all done and ready to move in.
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But I need to figure out which ones to get. I don't want to spend a ton- any suggestions?