Let me start off by saying a few things:
-The garage floor had shit all over it when we were buying, so i did not even realize it was
5 different slabs, and not a single pour. Rumor has it the complex ran out of money, and our set of houses were built last.
-There was a pipe blowout, so the ceiling is caved by a few inches in a corner, not to mention all the pretty stains.
-The concrete was in "bad" condition, when i called the epoxy company after sending them photos, they straight up told me over the phone "
this is probably the worst floor we have seen in 10+ years."
-Budget: I had an idea of
5k for everything
Before:
Floor condition:
-The floor was rough, the 5 slabs had up to half an inch difference in height, some slabs are "arced" as in they are not flat, the slabs had holes, cuts, grooves, you name it. Also i should add it had a coating, spills, oil, all sorts of shit on it.
Photo showing the height difference between two slabs, they literally poured cement between them for the transition.
I probably spent a week simply looking at
just the floor at this point, debating what i wanted to do.
1. Leave it.
2. Paint it and call it a day.
3. Epoxy it.
4. Tile it.
5. Self level it then one of the above.
After hours of research, and debating how much of my back i wanted to put into this, i decided to order an epoxy kit + polyaspartic kit.
Originally i wanted to do white, but the epoxy guys convinced me to do black, as it would hide all the floor imperfections.
Looking back now, i wish i did do white. Painting a pile of shit white would have been fine.
While that was on order, i got to prepping the surface, clean surface = good bond.
At first, i made the mistake of reading that you should
dry grind your floors. Man was this a bad idea. After spending 4+hrs dry grinding, everything in the garage was coated in dust, not to mention to cloud it made outside.
For the next x days, probably 2-4hrs per day, i wet grinded the floor. My dumb ass used a handheld with 4" disk. Why? Because im a jew, and didnt want to rent the 12" heavy duty roll around version. This was a mistake, should have paid, picked up, and used the full blown unit for doing 400sqft.
To my defence, i dont think the large unit would have worked too well anyways, since the floor was so messed up, a 12" disc would not get into all the grooves, edges, and misalignment of the floor.
Then i poured concrete in all the cracks, gaps, etc, to make it
somewhat level.
I also used that elastic fill shit, this was a mistake. It was hard to "grind down" and the epoxy did not like sticking to it.
At this point i probably spent about 20hrs prepping the floor including parts pick up, grinding, filling, grinding again, cleaning, pressure washing etc.
Epoxy arrived, the guys convinced me to buy double what i needed, because my floor was in such poor shape.
It came on a god dam pallet
Anyways, at this point the epoxy was ready to be poured.
This was much more difficult that i thought it would be, but well worth the effort.
The epoxy guys state that you should not run a fan, as that can move dust around and blow things you dont want into your pour.
On the other hand, the P100 full respirator i was wearing, was not enough for the pour, my lungs felt funny for a few days afterward. Il add it to my asbestos, lead, and vermiculite diet. Looking back now, i would run 2, maybe 3 box fans 24/7 during this process.
After the epoxy coat + flake:
Probably about 4hrs total.
The worst part was the scraping, used a 12" metal scraper with 6ft extension to get all the flake off, my god was this a workout.
Maybe if the floor was flat it would not be an issue, but since mine was so messed up, the tool would catch edges, get stuck, etc.
Probably another 2hrs scraping.
Now for the polyaspartic coat, this went overtop the flake.
This shit dries FAST, they didnt lie in the instructions that you need to work fast. Good thing the gf was there helping me open boxes and tossing me shit. Not a solo job.
At the 400sqft mark, it started to set on me, just finished in time.
This shit also stank for several days. I think the epoxy was worse, but they both had a stank to it. Some people online have stated their pours never stopped smelling, probably bad product / open insulation in the house / open doors, who knows what.
Floor was now done, highly regretted doing it during the grinding process and flake scraping, but when it was done, my god what a difference. It also helped "fill" the differences between the slabs.
Onto the walls and ceiling:
Before:
Options were:
1. Paint
2. Tile
3. Click lock laminate
4. Glue on laminate
Keep in mind im a jew at heart, so i spent about 2 weeks at this point waiting for a deal to pop up online for some used but new shit.
I ended up buying 1300sqft of glue on flooring, for 700$.
I made a mistake buying all of it as glue on, should have bought the ceiling stuff as click lock.
I really wanted to do tile, but after doing tiling in the past, with the weight, mess, it was just not worth it.
Walls:
Probably spent about 20hrs on the walls, its all brad nailed down.
Ceiling:
Probably spent about 30hrs on the ceiling, also brad nailed down.
Originally i knew the glue on stuff would be a problem, i just didnt realize how much of a problem it would be.
Furthermore, my ceiling material is dust like, can not be glued down. Anyways, i did a section of the ceiling when it was like 20C outside, looked "fine", the next day was 26C or 28C outside, my garage absolutely cooks due to no insulation. So all the flooring "melted" (expanded) and then drooped down. (and then returned back to flat once temps dropped)
Solution? Add more nails!
For Hondaracers expert builder eyes only:
While i was doing that, i wanted some accent lighting, and once again, my cheap ass did not want to install actual tile, so the solution was this.
-Build box out of wood
-Wrap it in vinyl fake stone
-Slap on a accent light
-Run power to motion sensor
All together:
Total costs:
-Grinding, filling, etc 200$
-Epoxy / Polyaspartic 1600$ from powercoat. Could have gotten away with 1/3 less material.
-Walls / ceiling 800$
-9 Shelf film cabinet 160$
-New black shelving and racking 400$
-New lighting X5 250$
-Accent lighting and fake stone pillars 400$
Well below budget, but i still have tool chests, benches, metal/woodwork shit to pick up.
If you add the lift, thats an extra 2600$ used.
Total hours:
Probably around 80.
To finish:
-Baseboard trim
-Extend lift wood ramp, tires too big to fit on current set up
-Epoxy coat the wood ramp, to match the floor once complete
-More tool chests / workbench / upper storage / sink / AC install
-Paint the door / trim, etc