Extreme Garage Makeovers - Garage Tech + Series

Our project garage is starting to come around. In the first part of our build-up, we installed a 9000-pound capacity lift from American Automotive Equipment, which has been working like a charm. This month, we keep the momentum going by getting the shop side of the floor done.

We could have tried the Lowe's or Home Depot blue light special versions for a few hundred bucks, but you get what you pay for. If the etching isn't done perfectly, or any moisture gets trapped under there, your tires will be pulling up the paint for the first few months-and there's no guarantee against labor screw-ups, either. For this garage, we wanted something more industrial and high-grade, and with a warranty. So we called Protective Industrial Flooring.

Although Protective is based in Rogers, Arkansas, owner and founder James Martin reports they will do a job anywhere in the country through the firm's seven divisions. By his reactions, I think Editor Bidrawn might be next on the list.

Protective offers three different types of resin. For the ultra-high grade, no-expense-spared flooring, a pure urethane resin flooring is available, which features maximum protection against chemical spills and heavy equipment dropping. An MMA (Methyl Methacrylate) resin is also offered to the places that can't afford the downtime the other resins require to fully cure. This stuff takes about half the time but is more expensive and reportedly emits a strong, sweet odor like that of a nail salon. Lastly, Protective offers an epoxy resin with urethane in it, which we chose for our garage. It's less expensive, but still provides more than enough protection for everyday use.

Protective's urethane has UV inhibitors that prevent it from yellowing over time, and is made up of 100-percent solids. More generic systems usually use a high percentage of fillers, leaving you with a more milky appearance that's not as shiny. Protective's floors are extremely brilliant thanks to the high-grade urethane, which also leaves the surface non-slippery, scratch resistant and impervious to oil. At $12 per square foot, it's a relative bargain considering the quality product you get, which includes labor and a five-year warranty.

Where the decorative potential of this flooring comes into play is with Protective's affiliate company, Imagine That 360. It has the ability to place any digital-quality image on your floor. It can be driven over repeatedly or spilled on without worry. This is done by placing the image on a woven canvas using a heat-process, digital-quality printing procedure. By using different kinds of ink, this can be done for any of the three resins offered by Protective, with no color bleed.

As you can see, we went for this option. Depending on the resin used, adding a picture to the garage floor raises the total cost to roughly $18 to $20 per square foot installed, as long as the picture doesn't exceed 30 percent of the flooring.

Our garage took three partial days to complete, and total downtime was less than a week. Monday evening, the technicians started by laying out containers and equipment. The first task was a diamond cut grinder to smooth out the surface completely, followed by filling in any cracks in the garage floor with epoxy resin. After the epoxy dried, a layer of primer was applied. Because it's made of epoxy, the primer not only gets a good bond to the concrete but is extremely shiny as well. The application was left to dry overnight.

Tuesday morning, Protective's own-formula Pro Shop Floor Medium Gray epoxy was applied using sheep's wool paint rollers, which, although much more expensive, shed a lot less lint than synthetic rollers. This process was completed by touching up any paint blemishes by hand.

After several hours allotted for the epoxy to dry, the technicians returned that evening to lay our digital picture, which was shot at last year's US Grand Prix. It was to remind me of Michael Schumacher's exciting career (not to mention the whipping Ferrari gave the rest of the field there), and the rivalry between him and Alonso that made 2006 such a great year to watch Formula One. Just don't talk to me about the Japanese Grand Prix. Once in the desired location, a coat of urethane secured the picture to the floor and was left overnight to dry.

When I saw the picture the next morning, I was amazed at the floor's brilliance and vividness of the colors. Still, the technicians assured us that when the last coat of urethane goes on, it would really shine. They were right, and when finished, the floor looked too wet and shiny to even walk on. The urethane did give off a petroleum-like odor for a few days, but by the weekend it was gone and our new floor had cured.

As wet as it looks the flooring is (thankfully) not slippery at all, except-because of its imperviousness to fluids-when you wet it down. So when washing it, extra care must be taken.

The picture on the floor is bulletproof and can be treated like the rest of the floor. My only gripe is the same complaint I have after polishing a car with shiny black paint. The epoxy-coated floor is so shiny that any smudge of dirt or speck of dust is readily visible. When I pull a car in or out it seems next to impossible not to leave dusty tire patterns. Fortunately, the floor is quick and easy to clean and-like waxing a black car-when done it's always worth it.