The ultimate accent to any garage project is a nice upgrade in flooring. After weighing several options, I decided to go with a 2-part professional-grade epoxy for a variety of reasons. Of course, this approach can be very labor intensive. I decided to wait until my wife was away with her mother, aunt, and cousin on a "girls' weekend" and I got to work. First, I washed the floor, using oil remover on the (very few) oil spots in the cement. I then etched the whole floor with muriatic acid:
After allowing the etching to dry, I applied a primer to the bare cement:
That had to dry for several hours, after which it was safe to start applying the epoxy, for which I had a fairly short window to apply after mixing (and even shorter time to decorate the surface with color flakes). I think the results speak for themselves.
It can be tough to tell from a photograph what it really looks like, so here's a close-up of the surface after applying epoxy and color flakes (but before applying clear-coat):
After applying the flakes, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they glow in the dark! There is a mini star-field right on my garage floor!
In any case, after waiting a day or so, I applied the clear coat and then waited an additional 7 days or so before I could park our cars in there. Once I could, though, I couldn't be more pleased with the result.
I wasn't done yet, though, because I wanted to do SOMETHING about that ugly concrete wall...