hey what's up guys so i finally did it i epoxy my
garage floor and this floor used to be stained and super ugly and i am so glad i took
the time to knock this project out and i did it for less than a third of the cost
and i learned a ton and i want to show you exactly how you can do the same thing to your garage
floor on this episode of field trader designs the first step was to peel up the carpet tile
that i had placed from my back door to my garage office there and it came up pretty well although
it did leave a sticky residue that i had to work on here and there when i power washed next
my wife and i cleared everything out luckily i'm pretty organized and so it's just a matter of
moving the big pieces into the side room the pulp workbench there moves really well in case you
haven't seen that video series i would highly encourage checking that out but yeah just moving
everything out getting everything cleaned up and once the floor was all kind of uncovered
you can now see man it is really as gross as it first looked i mean it is nasty like i
said earlier 50 years worth of stains and junk and so i really want to help you see what i'm
dealing with in case you're dealing with the same obviously my biggest concern was will the epoxy
paint cover it and hide those stains for good and i'm excited to say that it worked the first thing
i did was power wash the whole garage floor i used a pretty inexpensive ryobi pressure washer and i
actually did a review video on that if you want to check it out on my channel but this thing works
great i wanted to get as much dirt and junk off the floor so that i could then tell what stains
i would be working with and i took a few of the things off the walls because of the splash factor
but yeah i just did a general cleaning get as much out there down the driveway as i could and then
i'll return to do more detail surface prep the next step was to use some goof off stain remover
and i am applying that to these really awful spots and so there's a lot of different chemicals and
cleaners you can get so this is what i chose for the stains there's also a lot of different methods
on diluting with water and applications and set time and all that and so for me i just
poured it straight on i used the concentrate and then after it was on the surface i then used
a bristle brush just to work it into the general stain area i let it sit for a little while then
i power washed it all off next i did a treatment with zepp heavy duty citrus degreaser so the
concrete stain remover worked decently well on the stains but it had an interesting effect in
that it made the outside areas of the concrete that weren't treated look a lot dirtier while the
stains kind of still stuck out so i wanted to just make absolutely sure that these stains were
treated as well as possible to minimize any chance for the stain to come through the paint
later on and then the exact same process i'm going to let it sit for a minute and then i'm going to
power wash it off the third step in the concrete prep is doing concrete etching so this is going
to go over the entirety of the surface i pour it into the bucket then i dilute it with water to the
right ratio for the square footage that i'm using and then i stir it as much as i can to dissolve it
kind of like salt into water although a lot more dangerous and then i pour it into sections but
i have to act really quickly it starts to hiss and starts to really have a chemical reaction on
the concrete and so i brush it into its spots and then after i get that done i power wash it off so
i had to go really quick i couldn't film this very easily and here's what it looked like so pretty
good i mean those stains are a lot lighter i mean it looks really bad on camera even as i'm doing my
voiceover work here i mean it still looks pretty awful but if you remember what it looked like
before i feel like i've done a lot of good work but it's funny how these different treatments make
the concrete look a lot different a lot splotchier and so to be safe i decided to do all three
processes over the whole garage floor one more time i sucked it up i mixed a ton more stain
remover and then i applied it over the entire floor then i power washed it all out then i did
the same thing with the degreaser after that i power washed all of that out and then number three
i mixed a whole new batch of concrete etching and i did a huge pour over and brushing for the
concrete etch one more time i really worked it in and then i power washed it again after i finished
i let it dry for 48 hours and here's what it looks like while it's drying and i would say it was time
well spent on the prep even though there's still some stains it's going to be great okay from my
garage floor there was one more step of prep and that was mixing up some easy quick crete to fill
some holes and some cracks so that i could smooth out some areas of my garage floor and so the
paint as i'm sure you've read will not fill cracks and so it's super important to make sure that
you fill in any holes or cracks before you do your paint job i just used a trowel to get the
concrete into the holes and kind of smooth it out a little bit and then while i let it dry and
cure i had some other projects to work on and so one of them was to paint the bottom trim around
the garage floor it was mostly concrete and so i primed it and caulked it and then i'm using
great stuff here and there to fill the holes and then i painted it the same color as the wall
which turned out really well once the concrete patching was dry i actually took my random orbital
sander with some good grit sandpaper it was able to smooth them out and it worked perfectly i had
never done this before and even though there's a few little pits in it after the paint it won't be
any problem at all okay all the prep works done here's what the garage floor looks like it's a
huge improvement and i'd love to introduce you to my host andrew bacon all right so i just went
for a run so excuse the short shorts but i got the two car garage epoxy kit and this covers
this is rust-oleum covers for 450 to 500 square feet this my garage space and i'm going to
go a little bit outside the doors it's 485 so i'm right in that sweet spot for coverage but
i've never done this before and i don't want to stress out about um you know it being too thin or
getting to like the last couple of feet and it not making it so i bought a single stall kit as
well and this covers two to 250 so worst case i have to bust this out and um best case i
had this and then i bought two bags of chips as well because i read that you need to sprinkle a
bunch more that what they give you doesn't fit so so that's what i've got let's open it up and
read the directions okay thank you andrew aka myself so here's what's inside the box this is
the two-car garage kit got the stir stick in the directions we've got two bags of chips
and then you'll see here that we've got two large containers paint cans of the base paint
and then there are two quartz sized containers of the activator it also comes with the concrete
etching chemical but i had already used that after i read the directions i realized that you
have to commit to the amount of paint you're going to use because the base paints could
be tinted just a little bit differently so earlier i had said that i might hold the single
car garage kit for later but i had to decide to commit to using it because you've got to mix
all three together and then redistribute them into their cans and so i went ahead and bit the
bullet and i didn't want to run out of paint and i'll show you how much was left after and i think
that i made the right call but basically here you have to dump all the base paint into a bucket
stir it up really well then redistribute it into each bucket because you want to activate
each amount at the right time because it doesn't have a very long pot life once the base paint was
all mixed up and redistributed back in the cans i put the lids back on and then i matched them
up with their parts and now they're ready to go next i consolidated all the chips from the
different packages and the extras that we had bought on their own thinking that we might run out
because of what i had read online well it turns out i had way more than i needed so this step is
not needed at all but this it gives you an idea of me thinking that i needed to be conservative with
the chips and have them in four different buckets for four different quadrants but as you'll see
later we had way more so don't open them until you need them finally it's time to paint so i open the
base then i open the activator and then i pour it in and i've got my drill with the paddle on there
to get ready to mix it up which i highly recommend having this and then you want to have a place for
it to go when you're done because i need to paint immediately so once it was mixed i then poured it
into the paint tray and so all of these supplies i'll have links to them in the show notes below
and thankfully my wife is helping me out here and that brush is going to be used to paint the
perimeter sections and so i start by painting the outline and i'm working in about four feet
section so i do the outline and then i get that done i hand the brush to my wife then i grab the
roller and get started the best way i can describe the paint is really thick and it did change while
i was painting which was really interesting so it started off really thick the edging was really
thick the roller was thick and then it was almost as if the paint kind of loosened up as it stayed
out and was ready to be used to paint so i really just went along and used the roller and i was able
to use the same roller brush for the entirety of the floor which was kind of cool so i'm gonna
do my best just to kind of show you our process and go from there so i did four feet ish by four
feet sections and then my wife went behind me and sprinkled on the chips and we learned that you
didn't want to do too much painting because you wanted to be able to reach the sections with those
chips and we just kind of went section by section i highly recommend having a buddy to help you
get this done by the end i was so tired and having my wife throw those chips onto the paint
while it was still wet was perfect and i think we're doing not a heavy pattern but we're not
doing a light pattern maybe somewhere in the middle and again we still did not run out at all
we had way more left over i was definitely curious about the stains if i would start to see anything
show through and i can even say after a month of use as i'm doing this video now not any stain
has gone through so it's covering really well again i'm really glad i prepped well and so next
i had to go around our middle pole there and so just like you would normally i just grab
my brush and just paint it around it and again my wife is sprinkling those chips on and
we're tag teaming which is working really well all right here's kind of a progress shot
again the sprinkling of the chips trying to give you an idea that was something
that we just didn't know how it would work and this is the quadrant we've gotten
done and yeah it's looking really good time for quadrant two so i worked my way around
the perimeter first just to get that knocked out then i was able to do an extended rolling
time and then after i got that done my wife continued to follow up with the sprinkling
and so we're just tag teaming along here and here's kind of a detailed shot just giving you
a look at how it's going on and this process is it's taking a while but it's going on great
and every time i'm thankful for the prep work now we're almost done it's the home stretch
so i've got a strip of painters tape at the transition i had put some quikrete in there
while i was working on this project to make that transition smooth and so that line marks
the end of the epoxy it's going to extend a little bit beyond my garage doors which is great
so my wife is just following up sprinkling i am dead i'm not going to lie i'm so exhausted by
this point a couple things i want to point out is have a towel like i've got over in the corner
there ready to go for all the extra stuff that you throw down i ended up staining my concrete on my
driveway a couple times which kind of frustrated me then my wife had to grab our blower so have
your blower handy or a broom because the wind was blowing in debris because it got a little windy so
that as you can imagine was frustrating us but all in all we got it done i painted around those edges
with the brush and then i'm using the roller and we moved along and we finally got this thing done
then we lowered the garage doors to about a foot open to allow airflow to go in and then i blocked
the outside with some wood then once it was dry i grabbed a work glove and loosened up any chips
that may not have dried on the paint and then i grabbed my blower and i blew them all out just to
prep the surface for the clear coat epoxy and by the way i think the clear coat it's a no-brainer i
would totally advise doing the clear coat because those chips that are great for the coloring
and the look of the epoxy floor they don't dry flat or glossy and so you want something to have
an extra layer of protection and smoothness here i am popping the mixture of the clear coat finish
that i'm going to put on and for some reason this is not included in the kit i have no idea why i
think it is absolutely mandatory to do the paint throw the chips on it and then add the clear coat
but i guess it is what it is so then i cut open a corner to add in the non-slip material it's
kind of like a very light coarse sand and i didn't want to overdo it and i put about half
to three quarters of the bag into it and then here's kind of the dilemma it's hard to mix so
i opened up the bag and i used the included stir stick just to kind of get it going and mix it as
best i could so then once i got that mixed i then poured it into the tray and so unfortunately
the bag doesn't fit all the way into the tray and so you have to pour about half the bag full
and then set the bag down and try to not allow it to drip anywhere while you go and do your paint
and then it just paints on like i did earlier so i just repeated the process that i had used for
the epoxy painting and i did the perimeter then i would use the roller and i had to kind of
learn it was a little bit different texture than the epoxy and i kind of just went along the
same way it's very hard to see what you've painted on and so keep that in mind and then the only
other thing i would do here is i would have a towel underneath my tray i don't know why i didn't
do that just to avoid drips and things like that and then the other big thing that i did wrong
was i underestimated i should have bought two clear coat kits so here i am at the end i'm mixing
up a new batch of clear coating because i had to run back to lowe's and buy another one so don't
make my mistake buy an extra one just in case i don't want that clear coat to be thin
and stretched out so i made sure it was nice and generous but luckily it all worked out i
just continued on painting it and got it all done real quick here's what i had left so for the
base i had plenty of epoxy left but i'm glad i mixed it because i would have run out and then
the decorative chips i sure wish i hadn't opened those two extra bags because we had plenty
and here it is guys the epoxy garage floor it's finished in all its glory there's nothing
on it everybody take your shoes off before you walk on it you know don't make dad's floor a mess
but guys this project i'm so glad i took the time to do this this is amazing i think the amount of
chips that we put in the floor it breaks up any deviation crack of the old concrete no stains
have come through and then obviously the clear coat is a must so make sure you plan for that
hey i'm gonna have all the links and details in the show notes below or on my blog thank you
so much for watching i hope it was helpful don't forget to hit that like and subscribe
and i'll see you on the next video thanks you