garage clean up

the mister is serious about his garage... excuse my french, i mean... the man cave. he likes it to be easy to clean and as tidy as a work space can be. the garage wasn't in terrible condition when we received the keys to our new, old home. there was the usual wear and tear and collected dust over the years... several years. first thing the mister wanted done was coating the garage floors with epoxy... but before we could do that, we need to etch the surface... and before we can do that, we needed to scrub the floor clean.

we spent 3 days scrubbing the floor.. lots of comet, lots of water, lots of elbow grease. afterwards, we applied a generic version of CLR to remove rust stains, followed by simple green to de-grease and remove any soap resin. finally, b'coz the surface of the concrete floor was smooth, we applied UGL drylok etch to etch the surface so the epoxy would adhere to it... we basically acid washed the floor.

however, the etch didn't do the job we expected it to. boo! here comes the trial and error part... had we known, what we know now, then, we could have saved ourselves 3 days of cleaning and $40 of cleaning supplies by going straight to the diamond grinder.

we rented a diamond grinder from our local home depot for about $100 for 4 hours. the surface of the garage was finally at the state it needed to be in. imagine, microdermabrasion for concrete surfaces! the mister gave the area one final scrub down with water and simple green to remove the dust and let that dry overnight.

the mister and his buddy D, finally got to apply epoxy shield to the garage floor. unfortunately, the mister learned it's  no longer legal in la or orange county to sell oil-based clear coat paint that's applied over epoxy. something about the VOC being too high. this type of clear coat is similar to the clear coat applied to wood flooring. it adds that shine and makes it incredibly easy to clean up messes.

materials:
comet w/bleach
[generic version of] CLR
[generic version of] simple green
UGL drylock etch
stiff brushes
diamond grinder - $100 for 4 hours at home depot
epoxy - $112 for a kit
paint roller extension rod
9" paint rollers (the cheap stuff)

approximate cost: $280