Summer is a time for riding bikes, and not working on the house. But I’ve been chipping away at it a little. I sanded the wood beam and post that are in the space, exposing the wood. I’ll polyurethane it. Nicer than paint.
How d’you like the pink pipe? If you can’t hide it, paint it pink!
My first attempt at resurfacing the concrete floor didn’t go so well: It cracked up badly and it came loose from the concrete below. So I chipped it all out and started over:
Above is the floor after I’ve removed the cracked concrete. Then I re-did the thin layer of repair mortar.
This time, I covered the whole floor in plastic sheeting and left the sheeting on there for two weeks. There was very little cracking this time (just near the edges of the plastic where more air could get in to dry it.) I think, even though it’s supposed to be ‘low shrinkage’, when the top surface dries while the bottom cannot, it makes the mortar want to curl up.
And I finished filling, sanding, and painting the window that looks into the garage.
I went back and forth a lot on what to put on the floor in this space.
My first plan was to get some cheep Pergo flooring, and install a floating floor over a moisture barrier. This would probably be the best approach for a concrete slab that doesn’t have any moisture barrier below it. But headroom in this space is extreeeemly tight for me. Actually, we are now using the ‘garden room’ space as a workout room: I have a bike trainer set up in there. When I sit on my bike, there is about 1/2 inch between the top of my head and the ceiling. If I put in a floating floor, I’d be touching.
So I decided to try using an epoxy coating on the concrete.
Preparation is quite labor intensive. I used a diamond grinder to grind the entire surface of the concrete to make sure it bonds properly. But I’ve learned that you can get a shroud for the grinder, attach it to the HEPA filter vacuum, and it’s almost dustless.
After grinding it, I had to acid etch it, and thoroughly wash the concrete.
You can see the cracks in the old concrete slab showing up clearly when the concrete is wet.
Above left is the garage back room, looking towards the toilet and the garden room. Above right is the toilet room floor.
I filled all the large cracks with acrylic latex caulk. The black parts are where I used an epoxy filler to fill larger holes or feather edges between different concrete pours. Here’s Arwen checking on my work. There’s something about concrete she loves: she’ll walk around a bit, then roll on her back on the concrete purring.
The process of coating the concrete is quite easy. You pour it onto the floor, then use a squeegee to spread it around. After that, you just use a roller to spread it evenly. In the photo above, I’m wearing spike shoes, so I can walk around on the wet epoxy and it doesn’t leave any marks. They are tricky to walk on at first — probably much easier than high heals, but I almost fell at least four times!
Then to get a more interesting patterned surface, and to add a bit of non-skid to the surface, I sprinkled it with a mix of color flakes.
One lesson learned: You have to fill all the cracks, not just the big ones. The epoxy runs into the cracks and they show up very clearly once the epoxy sets. In fact, they are much more visible than before coating the floor. So I filled all the cracks with the same acrylic latex caulk. It was well color matched with the epoxy coating.
Here’s the same area of floor after filling the cracks. Then I did the final clear coat.
It’s shockingly shiny now! The color flakes add a bit of roughness, but I’m really impressed with this stuff.
Bella says the new floor is so clean she could lick it.
Here’s Bella checking on the plants while mole was riding on Zwift.
That’s my bike set up on the trainer, with Zwift loading on the laptop. Initially I got the trainer because I was tired of crashing on wet pavement last winter. But I’ve got hooked: It’s so easy to just go down there and ride for an hour. I don’t have to worry about cars driving erratically, debris on the roads, etc. And I can get a really good workout in just one hour. So even on sunny beautiful days, I’ve been in here riding on the trainer!
A screen capture mole made while riding on Zwift; it’s quite scenic!
In October we went to Portland and had a good time eating vegan food, and attending veg fest.