Ok, so technically I’m categorizing this post as a “renovation,” but I would barely call it that. This is seriously the easiest project that made the biggest difference in our basement. It’s funny because we have one finished room in our basement and then our laundry room and workout room are both unfinished. It used to have horrible tile over the concrete floor, but most had been scraped off. We wanted to make it look a little more presentable for ourselves and for resale. Cue the easiest concrete floor refresh ever!
Let’s start with a “before” of our workout room floor.
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Ugly, right? I’m not 100% sure what the red stain is, but I’m guessing it’s leftover from the tile. The first thing we (i.e. my husband) did was scrape off the remaining tiles using this tool. After that, we vacuumed and mopped the floor to make sure any leftover tile pieces, dust, etc. were gone. Let that completely dry and then it’s time to get started.
We taped the bottom of our walls because they were recently painted. This is our workout room and one of the things on our to-do list was to revamp this room for when the baby comes. If we were just keeping it as storage, we probably wouldn’t have taped.
My husband’s biggest advice if you’re tackling painting your floor is to get a paint roller extension pole. One of these will save your back and easily twists in to most paint rollers. All we did was trim around the edge of the floor with a paint brush and rolled the rest. This may seem obvious, but make sure not to paint yourself into a corner. Always start in the furthest corner from the door. You don’t want to find yourself stuck in the room surrounded by wet paint 🙂
We found that our floor needed two coats to look fully covered. We waited 4-5 hours in between coats just to make sure it was fully dry before walking on it. We cut the edges once again and then rolled the rest. The paint we used was Rust-Oleum Concrete Garage Floor Paint in Battleship Gray. For convenience I’ll include the link to Amazon, but take my advice, we paid almost $20 less by going to our local Menard’s.
Once the second coat was dry, it was a night and day difference! We are far from being done in this room, but it’s a great start to our revamp for very little cost. Our next step in here is to build a shelving unit to hold leftover paints, tools, etc. After that, we’ll start on the actual workout room portion. Fitness is a big part of our lives and we’re committed to continuing that once Baby Beauchamp arrives in just a few short months.
Have you ever painted flooring in your home before? Can you think of somewhere that this easy DIY could benefit you?
