Garage Renovations


Over the past few weeks I under took what was originally supposed to be a quick 3 day project to epoxy my garage floor. I have already epoxied two rooms in my house and my in-law's garage so it is not like I didn't know what I was doing. My garage had other plans however...
Here is the before shot (note the wife bent over in the corner actually 'helping')

Things started smoothly enough. We emptied the garage (into the backyard), painted the walls and ceiling, and I was ready to start decreasing the floor. This is where things turned south. While power washing, I started to notice that what I had long thought to be a dirty but bare concrete floor actually had an old coat of oil based paint. Who friggen paints concrete with an oil based paint? Honestly! Shit, i thought out loud, several times, "I need a new plan".
Later that night at hockey I was bitching up a storm about my troubles when my buddy Harper said he knew how to get it up. He said he would swing by int he morning and give me a hand, but I need to run out and go get some stuff called Jasco Paint Stripper.
Let me tell you how Jasco Paint Stripper works. It comes in a small can and need to be hand painted on all the paint you want to remove, AKA my whole effing garage. Then you need to wait 10-15-20-25 minutes until you see it literally bubbling on the ground at which time you are required to scrape it off. Lastly, you clean up the excess with an odorless mineral oil (or something).
We decided it was best to work in small sections so we didn't a) die from the fumes, or b) et it on us and die from being eating alive by toxic paste. The hand brushing of the stripper went well, although tedious, and the scraping went well too. The cleaning of the excess did not. The residue from the stripper remained... everywhere.
About now it is day 3 of this quick 3 day project and I have not even etched the damn floor. I instead spent 2 more days hand scrubbing/scraping and power washing excess Jasco off the floor. After that, I was able to etch. At that same time Harper had a sweet idea to get some NP1, a 'super caulk' if you will, and fill in all the seams and cracks on the floor. This was actually an awesome idea and one of the easier jobs of this project. With all the seams sealed, the floor would look like one giant, sexy slab of epoxied concrete.
Day 6, Finally able to put down the bonding primer, which of course, went flawlessly.
Day 7, Put down epoxy and decorative paint chip flakes and buy new Craftsman workbench from sears to replace old ass workbench that I was told, "...is NOT going back in this garage!!".
Day 8, Final step, apply a high gloss clear coat to give the floor some extra protection and that oh so sexy showroom floor finish!
After the floor cured we were able to move some stuff back in just in time for the Pumpkin Carving party we host every year!
The finished product:

It takes 7 days for a full cure and then you are able to park a vehicle on it. Since Traci is the only one who gets to park in the garage, she was chomping at the bit to park inside again. While we waited we had had the trim and garage door painted to get rid of the poop brown color it was at the time. Since we already had the paint, and someone else was doing the work this went very smoothly despite running out of paint twice and the my multiple trips to Home Depot to procure it.
6 days of curing had passed and then, on the 7th day, in one final act of defiance, we heard a loud bang from the garage. The garage broke the garage door spring, trapping the door down and not allowing access though it. I was blamed for this immediately.
Apparently trying to replace these yourself is a good way to loose a hand, so we were left stuck until we could get someone out to do it. Luckily, Harper came to the rescue again with the name of a company that would come out the next day (after I eventually called... 4 days later). With the garage door fixed, the trim freshly painted, and the floor all glossy this project finally had come to an end.






Comments

  1. Gee, you had people to help you? wow.

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  2. Tenkely, thanks for using the Recent Visitors gadget. Now you can customize it.. (Thumbnail size, number of users to show).
    http://www.didiknow.com/2009/10/recent-visitors-gadget-for-blogger.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gee, you had people to help you? wow.

    ReplyDelete

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