After reading the garage thread earlier I mentioned to the wife I might sort out the garage. MISTAKE!!!

Okay, so apparently the garage floor needs painting (I do actually agree it would improve things). Do I need expensive special garage floor paint or can I use normal paint. If normal paint, gloss or emulsion? how much sand do I add?

WCA
As a previous poster pointed out, clearing the space is the biggest job! certainly for me..
If I was clearing mine out I would buy cheap tiles and tile it. A mate did his and it looked good.

I have a big double garage so can move stuff to one side and then the other. I am looking for CHEAP solutions which is why I was asking about reusing the leftover paint from other jobs.

Special floor paint is relatively cheap and easy to use. You can buy non-slip (i.e. with sand already added). Although colours are available it’s best just to go with the standard grey.

If the floor hasn’t been painted before it will probably suck up the paint for the first coat, so will take more than the tin suggests. Do a good few coats to give you a good, durable finish. As I said on the other thread I jetwash mine before painting to give it a good clean.

It will probably chip from time to time but you can just do spot repairs with no problem.

Red lead is the stuff I always thought was used.

It is certainly red but no idea if it has lead in it. If it does I doubt you can still buy it.

Screwfix No-Nonsense – £9.78/2.5ltr

Toolstation anti-slip – £21.53/5ltr

sort of stuff you feel you ought to spread with a squigey (sp?), not a brush 🙂

Cheap solutions. What you need is an indecisive mother. One that goes out and buys a loud of wooden flooring, then decides she doesn’t like it and gets some completely different stuff instead.

This results in your very pissed off father bringing round said wooden flooring for you to do your garage, while muttering and swearing a lot.

I really must get round to putting it down. I’ve done our (somewhat smaller) kitchen with it already 🙂

Actually WCA whereabouts are you? I’ve got a gert big tin of garage floor paint that I was going to use prior to my mothers over site. You can have it if you want it fella

Use PVA glue mixed with water on a 1:1 ratio first BEFORE doing any painting.

This will give the paint a better surface to bond to rather than just plain concrete. Also, it is cheaper than spend a fortune on paints and doing several coats.

You could just use the water/pva mix instead of paint. I did and it cuts down the amounts of dust generated by (UN)treated concrete

International Garage Floor paint is what you need.

I used a tin and a half on my single garage. I think it was about £20 a tin.

International Garage Floor paint is what you need…

…if you want to pay too much for your floor paint 🙂

No real difference between International and a generic / unbranded version, except that you pay half as much!

Binners – I am in Southampton, where are you?

PVA first = Good idea

Garage floor paint is about £7 a tin (2.5 ltr) in the Aldi near us

At B&Q 60 square metres = £40

The Toolstation paint above (based on their coverage numbers) would do 75sq metres for £22. I’d probably aim to do 3 coats, so a double garage floor may take more than one can.

Free next day delivery, so you don’t even have to leave the house to do it 🙂

As above PVA/water first

PVA done. Going out for a ride and then picking up some garage floor paint from ScrewFix tomorrow. Half the price of B&Q.

PVA was £7 for 5 litres and B&Q wanted £6.98 for 1 litre!!

Nowhere near Southampton fella unfortunately

No worries ScrewFix seems quite cheap

Have you seen the size of WCA’s garage? It’s bigger than my entire flat, I’m sure.

Why don’t you just hire it out for events?

What events do you have in mind? Far too small for all the fun of the Big Bike Bash!

Definately use non slip, I had to do ours twice, once with regular paint, then again with non slip after falling on my arse 🙄

I think if I was doing it again, I’d probably tile it instead with those big pvc tiles, miles more expensive but a mate of mine has them in his, and they’re nice to walk on and seem to keep the heat in a bit. Plus, when you drop bolts, which I do probably 100 times an hour, they don’t bounce as much so they’re easier to find.

Why do you need to paint your garage floor?

Why do you need to paint your garage floor?

Stops concrete dust settling on everything in the garage, makes it easier to find dropped bolts etc, much easier to sweep out.

Scruff top tip- a blanket on the floor under your bike when fetting stops bolts bouncing into the underworld. And you can just wear your socks.

Take all the paint you have, mix it in a big ol’ bucket…throw in a bit of sand, or failing that, some porridge oats or quorn or tofu. It’ll most likely be a greyish colour. Throw on the floor, leave for the weekend to self level. Hey presto!

They sell floor covering things in Costco. Look nice imo.

Err this stuff I think

Garage floor covering

Agree with Grunty but would probably use a mix 4 parts water to 1 part PVA, then the floor paint of your choice. As is usually the case the preparation is more important than the final paint you use on floor. Gray seems to cover concrete best and when it chips it tends to be less noticeable.