Basement Floor Epoxy Coating

Hi Everyone, and Happy Friday!

Today, I'm so excited to share one of the biggest bang-for-your-buck weekend projects you can undertake (in my humble DIY opinion).

Someday, this blank space is going to be Grandma's dream sewing room.  It may take months, maybe even be a year before we get to it, but we've got big plans to convert this large basement bonus room to the perfect spot for Grandma to make her beautiful quilts in.  And Gracie has requested a kids craft area in there too.

But this is going to have to wait. We have another side of the Momplex to finish up, and lots of other necessity projects (like closets and furniture projects) to take on for Grandma who likes to sew.

But one thing we want to do before Grandma moves in to her side of the Momplex is to apply some sort of finish to the concrete.  The concrete is brand new, and will take stain or paint well.  It's also empty right now, so no need to clear out the space to finish the floor.  If we wait until we tackle the sewing room months or years later, the room could be filled with stuff, and the concrete could be stain or need to be cleaned again (adding extra work).

We went back and forth on adding a flooring over the concrete.  We really love the vinyl plank flooring installed upstairs, but it would be thousands of dollars to add it downstairs - and the slab is heated, so it's another layer for the heat to pass through to warm the floor.  Carpet would have insulated the floor against the heat rising, so it's out.  

So we thought we'd try out RustOleum's Epoxy Shield Garage Floor Coating Kit - Can't beat $99 Bucks!

We also reasoned that if and when we finish the sewing room, we could still add flooring over top of the painted floor or throw rugs if Grandma so desired.  We aren't fans of temporary fixes that you have to rip out later on.

We also decided to finish out the basement mudroom area adjacent to the sewing room with the EpoxyShield coating.  This is going to be a high traffic, wetm snowy boot area, and applying a finished concrete coating is a much better alternative than a floating floor, where moisture could get trapped underneath or damage the floor.  

So, here we go!

We are lucky to be working with clean, fresh concrete, properly cured and very smooth.  If you have concrete that has grease stains or paint spots, make sure you properly clean and etch your concrete before applying the garage floor coating - we all know proper preparation is key to a lasting finish. (There's a terrific video here on preparing the concrete and coating application).

The kit comes with a Part A and Part B,

You simply pour Part A into Part B,

And mix the two together.

The EpoxyShield Garage Floor Coating comes in a few different colors, so if gray isn't right for you, there's other options.

So here goes!

First, we edge the outer walls.  Since there's no base moulding up, we can just paint carefully with a brush.

After edging the outsides, we can use a roller to apply the epoxy coating to the bulk of the concrete floor.

To me, there's few things worse than a solid color floor.  Solid colors are not forgiving, so every piece of dust or scratch will be super obvious.  Notice the freshly painted epoxy coating is solid?

The kit comes with little paint chips that you scatter over the freshly painted epoxy coating to break up the solid color.

Once we got the sewing room done, we worked our way out the door to the mudroom slash stair landing area.

Here, there is some moulding and the stairs, so we taped everything off first, and then carefully edged.  It would have been a pain in the petunia to floor under those stairs.  But painting on an epoxy coating?

About as easy as mopping a floor.  And not much more expensive too!

We just kept working our way outward, painting and throwing the paint chips over top,

Until we worked ourselves right out of a job.

Now the hard part, staying off the floor until it fully dries.

It was tough, but we mustered up the will power and took a few days off from working.

And then, after the EpoxyShield coating fully dried, we went back and removed the tape and admired the floor.  Not too shabby for a $99 floor, eh?

So what do you think?  Have you painted your garage or basement floors?  How did they hold up?

UPDATE: Three months later and despite Santa dropping off 6 rolling knee scooters and countless kids playing, the floor is a brand new looking as ever!