We’ve finished painting the garage floor! Here was the garage when we last saw it:
After we installed the exterior doors… the garage was a little emptier and we could get to work.
I got a great deal on a 2.5 car Rust-Oleum EPOXY SHIELD Garage Floor Coating from the mistint section in Lowe’s for $60 (It retails for $120). It was missing one of the two bags of etching compound… but there was still 4 times as much as we needed.
There are two base color options; grey & brown, and they can be tinted several different colors.
Here are the options for Tan Gloss:
And the Gray Gloss:
As I’ve gripped about before, I’m not a fan of brown paint. Luckily, the one on sale was tinted Gunmetal Gloss, which was tied for my favorite option; score.
Once we could get to the garage floor, we pressure washed it. I had expected there to be a big difference… for the floor to be gray concrete again instead of brown, and most of the stains to go away.
It didn’t clean up at all. I am so glad I got the floor paint 🙂 Then according to our handy-dandy instructions (which we followed religiously) we etched the floor twice.
Then we sketched it. Or cut it in with the mixed epoxy… call it what you like 🙂 Here’s what we used for the Rustoleum kit:
We used a 3/8″ nap roller and a 2.5 inch paintbrush, both of which worked well. I would use a larger nap roller if your concrete was in poor condition. I split the paint flecks into 4 equal containers to pace myself. I only used about 60% of the flecks included with the kit.
The directions are very clear, and we followed them like dweebs… or really close rule followers. To make the coating, you mix a ‘Part A’ into a ‘Part B’… but the two gallons are mixed and applied separately. The cure time is only 1-2 hours (1.5 hours at the temperature we were working at), so you can’t mix the whole batch together and finish on time.
I worked in small sections (as directed) rolling and then immediately throwing flecks at it. I felt like a fairy-in-training during this project 😀 It only took me this first square before I was giddily happy. It looked amazing.
We progressed through the first can, ending up with this grid of sections…
The first can alone covered 70% of our garage.
Then we mixed up the second batch and finished the floor. We spent 2 hours painting the floor; less time than the prep.
Before the 1.5 hour pot life on the second gallon was done, we sprinted to Lowe’s, grabbed some 1x6s, took the leftover paint ( more than half a gallon) and painted our ‘baseboards’.
And then started worrying.
Although the sections of the floor were starting to blur together, there were still noticeable transitions. The worst part was that the second gallon never matched the first. Luckily, Rustoleum has outstanding customer support. We called them on Monday, told them about our clashing floor, and they suggested for us to apply a second coat (no additional prep or stripping needed) within 24-48 hours of the first coat. They even funded the replacement.
The only difference in application they suggested was to mix the two Part Bs together in a large bucket, and then pour back into the original cans. We used a gram scale to get the paint split 50/50 after mixing them together. Mixing the Part B is a foolproof way to get the tints to match; just do not mix the Part A in with this, and be very careful to split the paint evenly between the two cans.
By the time we got the instructions, we only had 5 hours on a workday to finish… but we left work early, ran to Lowe’s, got the second kit, and slapped it down.
We did a few things differently. Since we’re installing baseboards, Michael didn’t worry about cutting in this time; he just rolled. I ran around and played sprinkle fairy. The timing with two people working that way worked out perfectly.
We also mixed the paint every few minutes; this almost completely removed the grid pattern that we had the first time.
The second coat went much more quickly; finished the garage in a little over an hour. There were still some transitions visible in the wet paint…
But they dried seamlessly. I am 100% happy with the end product.
Here’s a close-up of the Gunmetal Gloss.
Some notes about our application:
We left the garage doors open for over 24 hours since we painted right under them. Technically you aren’t supposed to paint where there’s sun exposure (UV breaks the epoxy down)…. but the front of our garage never gets direct sun. We’ll coat it with UV protectant epoxy down the road if needed.
The best fairy sprinkle results I got were from flicking the paint flecks slightly up; not tossing them straight up like the directions recommend, but flinging them almost horizontally. I also had awesome results around the border of the room by throwing the chips at the wall (pretty forcefully) about a foot above the floor. It ended up perfectly even close to the wall.
We’re getting closer to finishing the garage. Now we need to install baseboards and build storage… While building a deck 😀
[…] You can see detail of all that mess in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. […]