Whew! We are so excited to have this phase done for our Old Basement Refresh because now we can start to use the space again and it is looking migh-tee fine (If I do say so myself)! If you haven’t read it yet, you can go see all that we accomplished in Phase One here. It’s taken a lot of elbow grease to get here, so you’ll like seeing the before of the basement!
Once we got the walls and ceilingds painted, we decided it would be really great to update the floors somehow – make them easier to maintain and clean in the future. Lucky for us, we know someone who’s a professional waterproofer and uses epoxy coatings all the time!
We owe so many thanks to our family members who’ve stepped in to help us throughout our house renovation, and this project was no exception! Eric’s Dad guided us through this entire process, and it was nice to work with him in his element.
We decided an epoxy coating would be the perfect way to update our floors, while also providing easy maintenance in the future. It’s also a great way to seal the floors to prevent more damage and deterioration in the future.
Our house was originally built in 1896, so it’s been around for a long time. It’s quite impressive how good of shape it’s still in really, but the basement could use some TLC. As I mentioned in my first post of the basement refresh, it used to be accessed from the outside only. It was damp, dirty, and dusty!
Step one – Clean Floors
Just like with the first phase of our basement refresh, a good portion of the work was spent in preparing our floor surfaces. It’s all in the prep work! We’d vacuumed, swept, and pressure washed during phase one, but we needed to do it again to get the floor as clean as possible.
Once we got it cleaned up a bit more, we used a concrete grinder to clean and smooth the surface even further. The epoxy needs a very clean, raw surface to adhere correctly. Because our floors are so old, we needed the grinder to really smooth things out and create a clean, raw surface again.
This part went pretty quickly, we spent an hour or so grinding, and then we went over all the floors with a vacuum to get all of the dust particles and remnants that were left. This left the floor clean and prepped for the base coat of epoxy.
If you are working with freshly poured concrete, you may not need to use a grinder. Just make sure your surface is raw (doesn’t have any kind of finish or coating on it already) and very, very clean.
Tip: If you do not have a concrete grinder, you can likely rent one for a few hours from your local hardware store or home improvement store. The one we were using even hooked up to a vacuum so that all of the dust and concrete particles were instantly sucked up into the vacuum. I’d highly recommend getting one that hooks up to a vacuum, as it gets very dusty and dirty without it.
Step Two – Patch Floors
Once we got all of the floors ground and smoothed, we went through and cleaned them once again by sweeping and vacuuming everything. It’s very important that you have all dust and debris off of the surface so that the epoxy adheres well and correctly.
After doing one last clean up, it was time to patch all of the cracks and divots on the floor that had been created from years of deterioration and neglect over the years.
To patch these areas, my father-in-law played chemist and mixed up a couple of different pastes – one for the cracks and one for creating slope in certain areas of the basement that needed it. As this sets up, it creates a barrier and surface very similar to concrete. We let the patchwork cure overnight.
Patchwork on cracks 
Creating slope with a sand-like epoxy paste
Step Three – Base Coat of Epoxy
Now it was finally time for the base coat of epoxy! You roll this on with a roller, much like rolling paint. This first coat was thicker than the rest, so we gave it 24+ hours to cure and set up. There were many air bubbles that came up as part of the adhering process. Those were sanded off prior to the next pigmented coat of epoxy.
Step Four – Pigment Coat of Epoxy
This was the fun part for me! We had decided on a charcoal gray as our base color, and then we decided to add a bit of flair with a mixture of paint flecks. We went with a blend that had black, white, gray, and blue flecks in it. Adding the flecks makes a tremendous difference in hiding any imperfections you have on your floor. It is insane.
I had the honor of dropping the paint flecks. It may seem like it’d be an easy task, but it does take a bit more skill and practice than one would expect. I’m adding it to my resume. Ha! I wore the spike shoes because, in order to drop the flecks, I needed to follow behind where the gray epoxy coat was being rolled on, still fresh and very wet.
When you drop the flecks, it’s important to toss them UP in the air and let them fall like confetti for even coverage. You don’t throw them directly on the floor. This creates concentrated “piles” of heavy flecks, which you typically don’t want.
I wanted a medium coverage, so it took a bit to figure out how much I need to toss up and how that would look. Once I got in the swing of it, it was pretty smooth-sailing and fun! While I’m well aware of some imperfect/concentrated fleck spots on the floor, I don’t think it’s very noticeable to anyone else walking through.
We let this coat sit for another 24+ hours to harden and cure really well. And then it was time for the final step!
Step Five – Top Coat
Because we dropped flecks on our epoxy and because our floors were so old and not in great shape, the topcoat really helped to smooth things out. We rolled on one final coat of clear topcoat. This leveled things out a bit and made the floors less rough. This will make cleaning and moving things around in the old basement a breeze!
Here are a few close ups…
Oh man! We are so thrilled with how this all turned out. It’s definitely not perfect, but it is absolutely 1000% better than what we had before. We’ve already started organizing and utilizing the space in here for storage. It’s wonderful to have dedicated space for thing (post coming soon!).
Before & Afters
And since I did it in the last post (and because its fun to see progress side by side!), I better include some before and afters of this phase of our Old Basement Refresh…
COAL ROOM:
Before 
After
OPEN AREA:
Before 
After
THIRD ROOM
Before 
After
We’re very grateful for each little progress point we reach in this house renovation! This was a big one for us. Now we actually have a large, finished area where we can begin to “put things back”, plus some. Whoop-Whoop!
Have you done epoxy floors on any of your floors/spaces? I’d love to hear about or see your photos, so please reach out to share!
To the Chaos!
-MG
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I’m currently working on grinding our basement floor and plan to spread epoxy as well. Would you be willing to offer some insight on the materials that you selected for the application process? I’ve done a lot of research but didn’t know what specifics you used in terms of: epoxy base coat brand, epoxy top coat brand, how many layers of color you used with your epoxy flooring and how many clear gloss coats including the brand name for that? I appreciate anything you can add to help me out!
Hey Todd! Thanks for reading. So, I am not sure on the brand or specific materials because my FIL provided them. He has a waterproofing business, so he has commercial grade products that he used. I’ll have to ask him sometime, and see if they are available to the general public. I’m pretty sure we did a base coat, two color coats, and then we dropped the flecks in, and then I think it was one, possibly two top coats. I wish you the best of luck! You might also ask an employee at a home improvement store about their best epoxy brand. Or possibly a garage epoxy product?