Cammo concrete floor and lesson learned

Just thought I'd share my experience of painting my new shop floor as it could help someone else. My shop is 20x35 with smooth concrete floor. I wanted something other than bare concrete. Decided to just paint it with Sherwin Williams Tread Plex after considering many other options. Took the advise of everyone that said the floor had to be etched first and decided to use a concrete grinder rather than acid. The grinding went very well, didn't even need to buy a set of diamond pads as the ones on the machine were hardly used.

Here's the lesson learned. When you grind you use just enough water to keep the dust down and help with the grinding. This creates a concrete slurry over the entire surface. If you let that slurry dry you will spend hours scaping it up, big mistake. Be sure and get it off while it's wet.

Anyway, I decided to give the floor a cammo look to make it a little out of the ordinary and help hide the dirt a little. I think it turned out OK and a side effect is the texture makes it less slippery.

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Originally Posted by Perry Holbrook

a side effect is the texture makes it less slippery.

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This is real. Some of the epoxy floor paints add sand (or something like that) to create texture. I put a vinyl tile in my last shop and I loved how durable and easy it was to clean, but EVERYTHING slid. Sometimes 'ok' to be able to slide stuff, but more often a major hassle to have it slick (could not stand a board up on its end or it would slip out, etc)

Enjoy the fresh new shop!

Interesting effect, Perry.

I'm really mulling over how I want to do the floor for my new shop building. I'd really not prefer to have just plain concrete.

Not sure hiding the dirt is going to work for you Perry. It just gets deeper;) I like the look but will you be able to find that screw when you drop it? You know, the “camp” effect. I used a product call Rustbullet on my shop floor. I sealed it first and chose the gray color. It was a one man job and has held up well since going in in ‘15. I left one corner untreated where my welding table is as nothing takes welding splatter very well.

I have poured two epoxy floors myself. In my first basement shop I used a commercial floor epoxy with an antiskid additive. Nice floor, not slippery and easy to sweep. I remodeled our current basement and put in a epoxy floor with no added antiskid. Slippery! Its not a shop so not a huge problem, but if were epoxying my shop (it is a plain concrete floor, which I like), I would definitely use an antiskid additive. My $0.02

Powdered walnut shells are used to add grip to floor paint. Coarser grind is used to "sandblast" fine details without blasting them off.
Bill D

Does adding any sort of texture to paint or epoxy cause dust to stick or catch when sweeping?