Do you want to get in on the ground floor? What if that ground floor is your garage floor? Garage floors can be greasy, dirty and gross- but they don’t always have to be. In this video I am taking the floor to show you my own garage floor and the steps and pitfalls involved in the process we used. You just may be floored by the results. Following this advice just might inspire you to mop up the floor with those oil and grease stains!
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/TCDFloor.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, and today’s Clutter Video Tip is about garage floor options. Now, this isn’t really anything to do with organizing per se, but people ask me this all the time, because you’ve organized your garage, you want to make it look good too, and there’s some really good functional reasons to think about what you want to do with your garage floor.
So, what we have done in this garage – this is my own garage – we did this four years ago. We used an epoxy kit that we bought at our local home improvement center. So, this took about $300 for a three-car garage. And it was about a three to five day process. So, I want to explain how we did this, and then you can decide what options make sense for you.
So what happened was we had a garage floor that had six plus years of accumulated oil stains and other car fluids that are unknown, and then we also had spilled paint on the floor, a bucket of paint. It was dark green; it was horrible. So I got sick of looking at that all the time, and when you have your normal car fluids that get on the floor, they really do absorb into the concrete, so it’s a good idea to do some kind of servicing just to make it easier to clean. So, we did this epoxy kit. What you do is the first day, you clean it. And there’s a product called Jasco that I highly recommend that helped us remove a lot of the paint that was on the floor. And then the kit comes with a detergent that you use to prepare the floor for the epoxy. So you do that the first day. You have to let that dry for 24 hours. Then you come back and you put the epoxy on. And you do that in sections. So you do one section and then you put the optional plastic flakes on it. And so this comes in a can, it looks like a Parmesan can of – grated Parmesan cheese. Basically, it has these little flakes in it with these holes and then you just shake them out – I have a picture here to show you what that looks like. So you do each section, shake on the little particles, and it gives a kind of a granite stone look to the finished product. Then, you let that dry for 24 hours. You come back, and there’s an optional clear coat that we did, and I think I would recommend doing that too. So that third day, you do the clear coat. And then you have to wait, I think, a couple more days, one or two days, before you can actually park a car on the surface. So it takes a while. You’ve got to have your garage completely clear for that amount of time, so you want to think about that and plan for that. And then at the end you have a really good-looking garage floor. Here’s a picture of it for you to see. And we have had some issues, as was predicted by some people, that they say this home improvement center do-it-yourself style of epoxy is going to have problems with what they call “hot tire lift-off.” And I have a picture here for you to see what that looks like. Yes, where we park the cars, the tires have lifted off pieces of the epoxy over four years. And for me that’s okay. The cars are usually parked there anyway, so you don’t really see it, and it’s still really easy to clean. All we have to do is kind of hose it out, sweep it out, and the oil stains don’t collect like they used to. So it looks really good with minimal tire lifting. There are professional companies that come in and do a more professional grade epoxy and they charge a lot more money. So like I said, this was about $300. My thought at the time when we did this project, I believe it was going to be $900 and upwards to do this three-car garage. So that’s why we elected to do it ourselves.
There are other options. You can do tiling, and also large mats that are created for a similar purpose. There are some pictures of it here for you on the screen, but you can make a choice based on the price and what works for you. We just found that for us this do-it-yourself option was a good one.
So, I hope that your garage will be looking good very soon. It’s that time of year. If you want some help with your garage project, we can do that in our Member Message Board area. For the price of a pizza you have unlimited access to our team of organizing experts. You can find out more at https://clutterdiet.com/learnmore.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for how to clean a garage floor and keep it looking nice or preventing oil stains.
Hi Lorie! Great video. Definitely informative and helpful tips! I haven’t heard of Jasco before but I will have to keep that in mind now, it seemed to have done a great job. The optional plastic flakes that you guys sprinkled there – genius! And it is included in the kit, right?
Yes, the flakes are included in the kit. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the great video Lorie. The option of garage floors was explained very well and I appreciate the insight of how you did it. I think the DIY epoxy garage floor is a great floor for the price, as long as you are careful when installing it.
A great garage flooring solution, and the easiest to install, is a Garage Floor Mat from Krauss Surface Savers. You can see their website at http://www.garagemat.com. I have one.
Great video about the realities of a “DIY” home epoxy kit. It’s very honest and informative of what to expect and how to do it. I’m going to add a link to your video from my own informational garage flooring site http://www.allgaragefloors.com. I like how you explained about “hot tire pickup” and why you were willing to live with it.