New Metallic Epoxy Garage Floor

Big changes have been happening at the garage. This year, my goal was to transform the garage from top to bottom. While the recessed lights made a huge impact in the look and feel, there was (and still is) plenty to do.

Even replacing the exposed shelving with cabinets and adding the workbench didn’t do much to hide the worst part of the garage…the floor.

I hadn’t touched this floor since moving into the house back in 2014. The condition was awful. Lots of cracks,  delamination, chipping and 20+ years of oil stains were really apparent.

I have to admit, my cars have added to the mess. A lot of those dots of oil are from the gray 6.

How the floor looked even when swept and hosed down.

So, this summer I finally pulled the trigger and hired a local contractor to finish this last component of the showroom garage.

I hired Custom Concrete Coatings, LLC of Las Cruces to complete a 3-part metallic epoxy called, “Dolphin” with “titanium” mixed in. Then, everything was top coated with polyaspartic for added protection. The entire process took just over a week which included curing and drying times. Here’s the base/primer coat applied after a thorough grinding on the floor.

Here’s the second part with the metallic color.

And finally the top clear coat with polyaspartic.

When the floor was completed, cure times were 24-48hrs for the polyaspartic before I could drive on it. I chose to wait 48hrs to ensure the top coat hardened properly. Poor cars had to brave the sizzling summer sun for the week.

Before lugging the washer and dryer back in, I finished off the back wall with new baseboards.

All the junk back in. Note I also added a TV for those late night car detail jobs.

First car on the new floor!

A week later, I continued the baseboards throughout and added a little bling with some LED lights.

Baseboards installed.

Lights installed and tested! Amazon provided the LED rope lights and I covered them with a frosted lens to diffuse the light.

The space is starting to look a little more presentable now. I would do this flooring again, but I have a few notes to mention for those considering going this route:

• The floor gets VERY slippery when wet. The glossy surface may look great dry, but when wet, there’s nothing to provide traction for those sneakers.
• It readily shows dirt and shoe prints. I quickly learned that I had to care and clean for this flooring like the laminate inside the house.
• It’s not ding and scratch proof. If you drop a hammer, most likely it will leave a small chip or scuff.

Despite the few drawbacks, I have zero regrets.

To complete the moment, I cleaned up the existing displays and flags I have on the walls. I saved some space for future additions, though I’m not entirely sure what those will be yet.

That wraps up the garage transformation for now. Long term additions will be some sort of sound system and HVAC control.

Side Fence

I’ve had a few people ask me, “Where’s the gray 6 staying now?” Sadly, since the addition of the Contour, I had to move this to the side of the house that’s just barely wide enough to park a few cars in tandem. This is where it sits for now.

I’ve been meaning to add shade and privacy here. Though the sun’s intensity isn’t that bad on this north side of the house, I still would like some shelter. I’m almost finished with the first phase of this project…addressing the privacy issue by building a 6-ft horizontal cedar fence.

The next phase will be attaching a sun sail from the soffit of the house to this fence. Once that’s installed, I won’t be on pins and needles when we get those 1/4inch hail storm warnings.

That brings us to a conclusion for now. Thank you all for stopping by!

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Breaking Bad, Ford Roundup and Garage Lighting

I’m back at it finding old Breaking Bad filming locations. This particular location is the first “cook” site in Season 1 and the many action-packed scenes in Season 5. Finding this location is a bit tricky as it sits on Indian reservation land in a remote area only accessible by dirt roads. After some digging around the internet, I found the approximate area northwest from Tohajiilee, NM (about 46 miles west of Albuquerque). So, I set about scouting in the freshly detailed Mazda 6.

As I’ve seen the Breaking Bad series quite a few times, it was easy to spot the landmarks. Found it!

Those of you who’ve watched the show know this is a very popular scene.

Here’s my try.

I was a little off lining up this one.

Walter White’s Chrysler vs. the Mazda 6

Road leading to the “cook” site.

Never hurts to flex the suspension a bit. Luckily I didn’t get stuck in sand. No cell reception or other vehicles for miles could have been bad.

Ford Roundup

Back in April (2019), I participated in my first ever local car show, the 16th Annual Ford Roundup. This was hosted by the Alamogordo Mustang Club and all American made cars were welcome to attend. Aside from a newer Buick Regal GS hatchback, I probably had the smallest displacement of the bunch. Lots of fun overall and quite a few spectators were amused by the Contour. I had two different groups: those who said they hadn’t seen an SVT Contour in person, and those who didn’t have any idea what it was. More photos can be found here.

I spent an entire day prepping for this show. Cleaning, Hoovering, dusting and polishing to try and get the Contour decent looking. By request of some readers, here’s some interior shots.

Forgot to mention earlier, I had the roof resprayed.

Here she is in the show with my homemade display sign.

Other photos from the show…

These folks next to me won the prize for best 1990-2000 in the show. Well deserved as their ’99 GT with 30,000 original miles was concours-ready despite traveling from Amarillo, TX.

In other Contour news, I took it in for its first oil change since it’s been in my possession. “Where did you find this?!!” from the service advisor. I also had them recharge the A/C and do a through inspection. All should be good now for Portland in July!

Also got the wheels refinished as the factory clear coat was pretty much all worn off.

Now, I can say the exterior is about as good as it’s going to get within budget.

Garage Updates

One major garage upgrade that was long overdue is lighting. This photo that was taken shortly after I moved into the house shows how much of a joke the single light fixture was. I can’t believe the builders considered this sufficient. I’ve gotten by over the years with plug-in halogen shop lights and headlamps for working on the cars or detailing. This year though, enough was enough. I needed to fix this.

Lots of research went into what type of lighting I should use. The first consideration was my overall intension for the garage. Am I going to make this into a mini-showroom or workshop? Two completely different lighting needs there. As I often do, I made things more difficult for myself and decided the goal was to have a mixture of the two. Track lighting would provide some dramatic effects, but not so useful in detailing or working on cars. Fluorescent fixtures seemed to be the best choice overall, but wouldn’t give the premium feel I was after. Final choice, 6″ recessed LED lighting.

Many hours of research went into how one does this retrofit himself. The process ended up being pretty simple, just time consuming and frustrating working with what little light I had available.

The efforts paid off in the end. Let there be light!

Next, the back wall needed a facelift.

I added some wood planks to an accent wall to give some warmth and visual interest.

Then I swapped the shelves with cabinets to avoid a cluttered look.

Lastly (at least for this post), I made a small workbench and added a pegboard.

This is how it looks today. I already made an appointment for an epoxy floor coating in June and later down the line I may add some sort of sound system with speakers in the wall. Stay tuned!