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You can easily give your garage floor a great new look by applying a protective epoxy floor. As well as looking good, the epoxy floor resists oil stains and is easy to wipe clean.
- The project
- Before and after
- How to apply epoxy to your garage floor
- Tips for transforming your garage floor
The project
So after what has been close to a year of planning I have finally completed my garage floor.
It took a lot longer to get this project off the ground - as my brand new garage floor was not as pristine as one would expect from a new house. But after a couple of months of badgering my builder and a garage scrape later - we were finally ready to go.
I purchased a Dy-Mark Epoxy Kit from Bunnings for this project as my research into their product showed it had everything I needed in one simple kit to get the job done.
I also spent quite a bit of time caulking my garage. A slight gap between the garage floor and the skirting meant that there was possible risk of seepage of the epoxy when laying it down. So some quick caulking and taping of skirts was completed just to ensure there was no epoxy going under my walls or onto the walls
As my garage floor was brand new - there was no need to complete any deep cleaning or etching of the garage floor. This easily saved me a couple of days of work.
Once the floor was all prepped I began the process of the mixing the contents of the epoxy kit. Due to the temperature on Good Friday (below 15 degrees) I had to mix the activator and the base for slightly longer than the recommended 8 minutes and the resting time was recommended at 25 minutes so I left it for 30 minutes just to stay on the safe side.
Once the epoxy has had time to rest after mixing, it's time to start rolling out the epoxy with a simple paint roller. The instructions suggested painting in square metre sections so as to give ample time to apply the coloured flakes. I stuck to this instruction as it made the process of cutting in and rolling out the epoxy pretty simple - and meant I didn't get too boxed in during the application.
After each square metre was rolled out I applied my flakes pretty liberally across each section - I definitely went overboard in the first few sections which meant I was running pretty low by the end of the garage so I suggest going easy on the flakes.
The difference between the old garage floor and the epoxy is night and day as you can see below - seeing some instant results as I worked definitely made the rest of the work a lot easier.
After close to 2 hours of rolling out epoxy and liberally throwing around coloured flakes my new garage floor was complete. The drying time due to the temperature was 72 hours - so I tried to keep the garage open for at least 6 hours a day as the smell of the epoxy was incredibly strong. You need to wait another 10 days before the floor is ready for vehicle use.
This was one of the easier D.I.Y. projects I've undertaken. It really is as simple as painting a wall - you are just doing it on the floor. The only difference would be if it is an existing garage floor there is some prep work required to get the floor ready for the epoxy. But the kit I bought had all of the materials needed to do this prep work as well.
Before and after
How to apply epoxy to your garage floor
For those keen to transform their own garage floor, there is step-by-step advice on the Bunnings website here - How to apply epoxy to a garage floor. The D.I.Y. video below also provides assistance.
Tips for transforming your garage floor
Word to the wise - when the instructions say wear gloves and avoid contact with your skin, listen to it. Although not harmful to your skin - the adhesive nature of the epoxy meant I added close to an extra hour to the project trying to scrub off all of the epoxy that was covering my hands.
When Bunnings community member Seaton applied epoxy to his garage floor, he found sun from his garage windows caused degassing and bubbles where the sun was hitting the concrete. The fix was to sand them out between coats.
"I can’t believe how hard this stuff goes after just 36 hours as I was there for hours using 40 Grit on my orbital sander and it was barely touching the surface," he said. "Anyway it was worth it and the second coat was fantastic. If I did it again I’d cover my windows so there was no direct sun on the concrete and it would save me some elbow grease."
Howdy @maknilsin
That has really come up nice! How has it held up? I have thought of the same at various times but have always hesitated over anything ontop of the concrete 
You have really made it look easy especiially with the steps you took.
Dave
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