Some garage questions, about different level floors

[gti16vman]

Ok, I want to do my garage floor, and am debating between tile and epoxy. The weird thing about my garage is that it is raised about 3-4 inches at the back and on the side. I attached a crude picture of what it looks like, the dark gray is the raised part of the garage (as best I could remember on the dimensions). If I do tile, I am thinking I might go for a black/blue tile checker pattern.

On the back wall, the raised part has cabinets and shelves all the way across, so there is only a foot or so in front of it. On the right side of the garage is my workbench, air compressor and some other stuff, so I am not sure what I am going to do with that area. Since there are no cars on the raised part, I think I could do epoxy on it in front of the cabinets and on the whole right side, and then tile where the cars are. Maybe all black epoxy on top and black and blue tile on the rest. Also attached is a crude depiction of this.

Any ideas/feedback, does this sound feesible?

 

[boiler7904]

Sounds like a good idea and a way around the curb issue. My first thought would be to go with a gray epoxy instead of black. It will make finding parts on the floor at your workbench a nightmare.

My only other comment would be to upgrade the lighting in the garage if you haven't already because a dark floor like you're proposing ***** up a lot of light.

I'd like to see pics when its done.

 

[gti16vman]

Yeah, I actually already have a rustoleum gray kit for 1 car garage (found on clearance at target a few months back, so it was cheap) that would work, but I just worry that it would not look that good with gray on top and the black/blue on the rest. Although it might not look that great if the black tile doesn't match the black epoxy as well. I will get a picture or two tonite of my garage to better show how it looks. Thanks for the input.

Edit: And as for the lighting, I currently have 1 4ft dual flourescent light with "sunshine" bulbs. I can easily swing that around over 1 car and put a matching one over the other car.

 

[gti16vman]

Talked to my wife last night, and she likes the blue/black tile idea, I just need to figure out if I am going to do 1, 2, or 4 foot squares. I think I will epoxy first though, and do the whole "upper " level with epoxy, and take that down the 3" drop so the whole floor is covered. I really like the idea of black with lots of white and blue chips for the epoxy, but I am still not sold on it. I need to look around at my options for epoxy and do some more reading on here about it.

This also gives me a chance to clear some stuff out of the garage. As evident in the pics, in just a year, a lot can pile up. I think I will take all of the shelving out (not the cabinets as they are attached to the wall too), and do under those with epoxy as well.

Also, I think I will end up getting another light, as I am not sure that one will be sufficient with the dark floor.

Any comments/ideas welcome.

 

[gti16vman]

Well, I just went ahead and ordered the blue/black tile (from floortilecloseout). Now starting the research on epoxy. I really want to get that done first anyway.

 

[mhoffm911]

I may be wrong, but it looks like your concrete has a "shine" to it. If there is a sealer on it, you are probably going to have to remove it (grinder, sander, acid etch, etc.). You certainly want to get the oil stains out as much as possible so that it does not bleed through the epoxy.

 

[gti16vman]

I think you are right. I am only going to epoxy the raised part, so it should not be too bad. I have measured it, and it would be ~156 sq ft if I did the whole raised part. It will be cut down a bit since I am not going to remove the cabinets in the back. I will take out all of the shelving on the back wall and everything on the right side and do underneath that. I had planned on acid etching it or sanding it after I tried to get as much of the stuff up as I could before I epoxied it.

 

[gti16vman]

Well, plans have gone back and forth, but I think I got it now. I plan on using SW Armorseal to do the entire floor in a light gray with blue/black/white flakes (looks like it will be weekend after next now, still have a lot of prep work to do). Then I will lay the tile down on the lower part of the garage that is parked on. I got the tile today and I really like the color. Figured out the pattern that I want to do, but not sure which way I want to do it. Attaching pictures of the tiles that showed up today and the mock up tile layout.

 

[mhoffm911]

Seth,

I'm somewhat confused by your patterns. Did you order enough of each to do it either way? In other words, the blue tiles are large in the bottom picture and small in the top picture, and vice versa with the black. Unless you have double what you need, I don't see how you can make it work?

 

[gti16vman]

I think it is an optical illusion because when I was doing it, I thought the same thing. I did order a decent amount of extra, 400 sq ft, and I am doing just over 300 sq ft. But in that pattern, according to the Dynotile configurator, it uses 164 sq ft of one color and 140 sq ft of the other.