I blame Tony Stark. Ever since the billionaire Marvel hero showed off his high-tech garage in Iron Man movies, I’ve been noodling on what to do with our 363-square-foot garage.
Of course, this garage renovation in a typical suburban Dallas-Fort Worth home will be less than the millions of dollars that Tony Stark spent — maybe along the lines of around $1,500.
Why do we need such a nice place just to park cars? Full disclosure: Our son, Beaumont, got an excellent deal on a nice, used German-made sports car. We also got a good deal on a new electric vehicle.
We felt very fortunate, so we (perhaps me more than my wife, Brigitte) needed a garage that matched this upgrade. We needed it to be a very low-grade version of a Tony Stark car gallery.
In preparation, we cleared the garage of the usual tools and garage-sale-ready totes that clutter the typical garage. We had the garage painted with leftover paint from a kitchen renovation. We added some inexpensive ready-to-assemble yet stylish Swedish-made cabinets to store the remaining clutter and tools.
Picking Out Upgrades
Sure, it looked sharp, but it lacked something.
It lacked a quality floor to match the other upgrades. Years of parking had taken its toll on the concrete floor with oil spots, tire skid marks, hairline cracks, and odd stains.
We decided we’d go with an epoxy floor.
We considered making it a DIY project, but the preparation looked exhausting and too precise. We also considered tiles and rolls, but we wanted something more permanent.
My son did the exploratory search for contractors, getting bids from various floor specialists through a simple Google search, checking the reviews and whether the contractors were BBB-approved. We agreed to a bid and made the appointment.
Full-Service Garage Floor
The contractors came in and did everything. They scrubbed and treated the floor, added decorative flakes, applied the epoxy base and clearcoat sealant (prepare for the fumes), and followed up with fine touches.
According to the guys putting in our floor, they advise against DIYers, but they don’t complain about them either. The less-than-perfect DIYers watch YouTube videos, decide they’ll do it themselves, and buy the materials.
Typically, this effort can be a big fail. Materials get wasted or misused, and the scale of the project creates a mess that only professionals can salvage. “A lot of our work is fixing other people’s mistakes,” one contractor told me.
This is not to discount the DIYers. Some are better than others, but we decided to outsource. Your experience might vary.
Hardware stores, big and small, sell the materials. And as mentioned, the Internet is full of how-to guides and videos to guide you through the process.
As for ours, it might not be Tony Stark cool, but we’re extremely happy with the way it turned out. (Yes, I did cry in Iron Man 3 when his mansion was destroyed).
Related: Whether You’re Selling or Staying, Don’t Neglect Your Garage, Says Designer Kim Armstrong
