I'm thinking of painting or tiling the garage floor in our new house and I'm looking for recommendations. I think my silver S2000 would look pretty good sitting on a sealed/covered garage floor!

A friend of mine who's into off-road vehicles and karts tiled his floor in a checkered pattern with the inexpensive stick-on tiles. It seems to work for him, but it seems like anything that was spilled would go through the cracks between the tiles and spread underneath the tiles, weakening the glue.

I also looked at the garage floor paint that Griot's Garage offers. The description says that the concrete floor must be etched with muriatic acid first. A $55 gallon only covers 130 sq. ft. (13x10), so it would take at least two gallons to cover a three-car garage, maybe three.

The interlocking mats that race car crews use in their pits look pretty cool, but I don't have any information on them and I'm guessing that they're pretty expensive.

Anybody have any experience in doing this? Recommendations? Estimated cost?

 

Its a garage for christ sake. If you must rent a power washer. Clean the garage out totally! Stop by a Navy Base while the floor dries and pick up a drum of Battle Ship Grey paint. Bring it back home and spread it out let that dry!

Done!

 

Just be sure to clean the surface well and use paint that is designed for concrete floors otherwise it will peel after a while. A little expensive but well worth it.

 

I think you should do it in Silverstone Metallic and black trim. 10,000 bottles of touch-up paint from the dealer should suffice.

Seriously, about the interlocking mats, Motorweek did a quick piece on them and said they would cost about $800 to cover the floor of an average garage.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pinky:
[B]Its a garage for christ sake.

 

My co-worker's husband (who bought Pontiac's Firehawk) painted his garage floor black and white squares (checkered flag) . . . It looked okay, but the paint kept peeling off of the floor. . . He still can't figure out how to stop the peeling, so he's constantly repainting sections

His lackluster results have kept me from attempting the same thing. . .

My recommendation, paint the floor grey & paint the walls black/white checkers. . .

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TFota:
[B]I'm thinking of painting or tiling the garage floor in our new house and I'm looking for recommendations.

 

Some more info I found on painting garage floors:

Q: My problem is the peeling paint on our concrete garage floor. The floor was dirty and lumpy. We cleaned it and the ground areas smooth, then applied deck paint. It looked lovely until the car left black tire marks on it. Then we cleaned it, and now it's peeling. Can we fix it?

A: Three factors cause garage floor paint to perform poorly. They are improper surface preparation, moisture intrusion and hot-tire pick-up. All three can act together to cause the paint to peel. First, it's difficult to adequately clean a garage floor because dirt and grease are ground into the concrete's pores over a period of many years. Also, the floor is usually cracked, and most floors lack a vapor barrier below the slab. The following occurs: Subslab ground moisture works its way to the slab surface and lifts the poorly bonded paint from the slab surface.
The porosity of latex paint helps it resist peeling from moisture vapor, but the main problem with latex paint is hot-tire pick-up. Car tires get quite hot, and when the car returns to the garage, the hot tires soften the paint on a garage floor and cause it to stick to the tires. Oil paint resists hot-tire pick-up, but subslab moisture causes it to peel more readily.
Given the number of problems that can occur with paint on a garage floor, I don't recommend painting it. A better alternative is to clean the floor with a commercial concrete cleaner or a high-pressure washing, or both, and apply a masonry stain. The stain allows moisture vapor to pass through it, and it is less likely to peel or be lifted by car tires.

 

Rick, have you thought of a leather floor covering? Bovine beware!!!

 

I painted the floor of our old garage in our old house (80s house, good sized garage to fit 2 big cars like the 99 Vette and 97 Ram Air Formula).

anyhow, 2 gallons was enough to cover it... some stuff I got from Home Depot. Followed the directions to a T, let the thing dry for a week before any car traffic was on it, and it still peeled...

looked nice, but I think that carpet is a nicer solution. Certainly less maintainance work, but again you probably dont want to be leaking oil/coolant onto carpet.

We got a remnant from Home Depot that covered most of the garage floor in the new house. works well, and you can walk with bare feet in the winter time. Only get a bit nasty when a wet car is parked on it, but that dries without mildew. Any leaves that blow in just get vacuumed up.

Again, its nice, but only if your car ISNT leaking anything