Refinishing the garage floor [i]

Here's my summary/how to on concrete floors.



Rent a terrazo grinder, mine ran about 70 for the machine and 60 for three blades. Clear the garage because it'll be out of commission for a week.



Being able to hook the hose up to the grinder is immense. The applied water whisks away the concrete dust instead of letting it be thrown into the air. Concrete dust is fearsome.

You'll know you've ground enough when the floor becomes nice an white, see right side compared to left above. The grinder will leave swirl marks that will be visible, make sure this is the look you want. Machines that hone concrete are not used on existing residental applications.

A two car garage won't take more than a couple hours, so an overnight rental is entirely reasonable. An angle grinder with a concrete disc can take care of corners if they matter to you.

Don't worry about the smoothness of the floor, the epoxy layers will take care of that.



Notice how white the floor is when dry (and powdery). Years of wear had both smoothed and stained the concrete. My best guess is that doing the acid without grinding would mute the colors and leave artifacts where there were stains - could be good or bad.

Buy the chemicals. I picked up five gallons of acid for what I generously estimated to be 1000 square foot of concrete (including the inside of the house). When all was said and done I had only used half.

The shop had prescribed two overlayers, epoxy then urethane. In retrospect I might have just tried a couple layers of urethane, but more on epoxy troubles later. The square feet/gallon estimates here were pretty good.



Power wash and/or brush away the concrete dust and whatever else may have accumulated on the floor, the acid should be applied to a wet surface so don't worry about planning for any drying time.

I sealed up a crack knowing full well it wouldn't be hidden by the chemicals. Some might count this as a bonus for the distressed look. I hear there are elegant methods for blending patch jobs into the process, but I didn't take this route.



Applying the acid stain is best at night since you can wet the whole floor and not have to worry about it drying before you're done. Also, the acid works as long as it's wet, so the longer it takes to evaporate, the better.

Pump spray acid on a portion of the wet concrete and quickly brush it in. This is crucial and in the end you'll see any areas that weren't brushed. Then apply a top layer of the stain to eliminate brush marks and create some natural variation. Generally the mistiest setting works best here, if you streamed your name into the job it would stay.



The instructions advise removal of excess acid. I did not, since it would require retracing my steps and then spraying more on to cover my tracks. Kind of defeats the purpose. You'll see a layer of oil float to the top of the wet stain but this will just dry on top of everything and it all has to be washed later.



You're supposed to wait at least six hours, it's easiest just to sleep on it - not literally - and the fumes aren't bad so you don't have to worry about waking up dead.



When the acid stain dries it will leave a powdery residue. This should be neutralized with ammonia and removed.



The clean and wet floor will look like a marble, though notice some haze where there's just water sitting on top of the concrete. I can't explain it, though some of it's the fact that I don't have a polarizer for this lens.



The next step is to apply the epoxy. The instructions say the floor should be clean, but it must also be dry. Very dry. Even though the epoxy is water-based. And water should not contact the floor in any amount for several days, even though the urethane is water-based.

The epoxy goes on pretty easily with a sturdy roller on the end of a sturdy pole - it's much tackier than paint so the entire mechanism bears significantly more stress. A thin layer is best, I found success going over each spot once with lots of muscle, then very lightly to pick up excess and even it out. Any globs or thick areas will haze and that's quite bad.

I'd recommend against a second coat, but stay on the long side of the prescribed recoat time.



The epoxy goes on white, it'll dry clear.



The next layer is urethane. In the image above you'll notice the lamination where the epoxy has been put down, and that the colors of the stain are brought more to life. On the right you'll see the wet urethane.

The urethane is as sticky as the epoxy, but it goes on easier because it's thinner and the already-coated floor isn't so porous. It rolls on just like the epoxy. This is the chemical that gives stained floors their shine, though a satin version is also available.



The urethane dries pretty quickly, but has a longer cure time according to the spec sheet.



There's the white haze again, called blushing when referring to epoxy. I'm not sure what to make of it, I might point my finger at the epoxy, but it seemed to also be there when water was sitting on the unlaminated concrete.



Maybe the blushing will go away with the cure, maybe it'll be covered in road dust before then. It's local to some areas and depends greatly on how the light strikes it.

Other than that, I declare success.

Floors [s]

The flooring has begun. I don't have any shots other than the following:



However, rest assured Jon and Dave have it down to a science. The hallway leading to the master bedroom is done. We'll probably cover a lot of ground tomorrow, so to speak.

Bobby mowed down the remaining junipers, I sealed and tested the shower, and everyone plus Connie finished the fireplace.



And we managed to squeeze in some cards/Chop Stix/boba...



... and a little pool shenanigans.

Last of the painting, start of the flooring [s]

The hallway, stairway, and unnamed area adjacent to the kitchen is ready to be primed. And that will be the last of it.

I bought the flooring for the entryway, living room, dining room, and hallway. Installation will probably be this weekend, as the trim pieces make their way down from Oregon.

Domestication [s]

So a little while ago the Morelos Era came to an end. It was an lengthy, sickly death with people coming and going in the closing weeks - not befit of the three years of history within the walls. Everyone's parted ways for greater commitments, girls mostly, so I guess it's time to grow up. No more California burritos and daily house memes.

But on account of a rear differential, the vr is not comfortable for sleeping so I decided to close on the reo I was looking at (in lieu of a live axle swap). The neighbors (and phone bills) tell me it used to belong to the dude that wore this:



And that explains the 90s-fabulous satellite dish, sauna, security system, and wallpaper. Oh the wallpaper.

The place has amazing potential though, and since it's in general disrepair I'll have to fix everything to my own liking (with some concessions for budget and resale).

• It's 2000+ feet with vaulted ceilings, a fairly uncommon feature in San Diego unless you're looking at new tract homes way out east.
• West end University City is quite nice. There's very little through traffic and being on a hill means the lots are quite spread out. No houses across the street.
• Built on an incline, the house and yard have some added character.
• Spacious two car garage, but that was a foregone conclusion in my search.
• A large deck that affords a nice view of Mt. Soledad.
• A small, but deep swimming pool.

Really the only complaint I could have would be its proximity to the 5-52 interchange. By no means is it right up on the freeway, but there's certainly a presence when outdoors. I'm okay with it as a fact of life in Southern California, and it's far better than hearing coffee can mufflers in Miramesa, Sorrento Valley Road commuters, or loud whine characteristic of I-5 north of 56. Just as important, property values in San Diego seem to completely independent of ambient noise.



In keeping with my blog as a time line and howto for years down the road, I'll cover the renovations. Of course I'm trying to do as much of it myself as possible. The obvious reasons are promptness, cost effectiveness, the security and perfection of work done by the person with the greatest stake in the project, and the opportunity to learn very valuable skills.

First to go were the dank carpets. They accounted for 60% of the smell. Next was the ceiling popcorn. Without a doubt this was the least palatable task. It's messy (you have to wet it down and hack it off with a putty knife), it smells, and there's a lot of it. Combine this with vaulted ceilings and you have a very daunting task.

With the ceilings clear I was able to knock out the portions sitting under the new skylights. I'm pretty happy with the distribution I decided on, they add quite a bit to the kitchen, living room, and master bedroom.

My dad and Rob came down for a week of great industry. Jon quickly learned how to texture ceilings and walls, then hit them with the paint gun. As it stands there are three bedrooms, plus the master, that are good to go from the baseboards up.

I have Connie to thank for getting rid of (most of) the annoying wall between the master bedroom and sink area though I'm still perplexed as to what to do about the spot. Jessica was prodigious with the spackling all the while.



Pool Boy Rob was the driving force behind converting the pond into a swimming pool. His research meant we could execute on the work needed to get it up and running. The first step was to rent a pump and drain it as the attached equipment was missing or in disrepair. Clairemont Equipment supplied the device for $42 + tax + required damage coverage. Connie and Jessica made sure to rescue the mosquito fish that the city never picked up.



Once the pond was converted to a skate park, we set upon it with a power washer, tsp, and muriatic acid. This eliminated most of the staining and prepped it for the epoxy painting that we waffled over.







We ordered the paint just as PBR had to leave on a cross country rock tour (sans band). The next day Curt and I put down the Nelsonite Poolpoxy primer with rollers. It was a two hour process made difficult by how quickly the paint became tacky and the porousness of the pool surface. The following two days I put on the two layers of topcoat as prescribed by the instructions, using two and a half gallons of primer, two gallons of coat one, and just over a gallon of coat two. Next came the five day curing period.



I can't yet speak for the material's effectiveness as a protectant or its ability to bond to the pool surface, but visual appeal has benefited greatly.