By Jack BeresfordShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberWhen a woman in Virginia was quoted over $4,000 to get epoxy flooring in her garage, she decided to take a more cost-effective approach.
Grace Klich is a stained glass artist and Pokemon collector from Richmond who recently channeled one of her twin passions into the other. "I sold my prized Pokemon cars to renovate my garage into a stained glass studio," Klich told Newsweek.
Pokemon cars might read like a typo but it’s not. Until recently, Klich was the proud owner of a "Pikabug" Pokemon-themed Volkswagen Beetle and a Lugia PT Cruiser, both part of a limited number manufactured in the late 1990s to help promote the release of the game in the U.S.
While Klich was reluctant to part ways with the ultrarare cars, it’s a decision that has helped Klich move one step closer to her dream of having her own studio. It’s a dream that included one very specific thing: epoxy flooring.
"I had seen amazing photos of epoxy floors with a neat metallic-grunge swirl look and knew I wanted something similar for my studio," Klich said.
Despite raising funds through the sale of her cars, Klich balked at the $4,000 she was quoted by one contractor for doing the job. Instead, she decided to take the task on herself.
It’s almost always cheaper to take on a home improvement project yourself rather than outsource it. One study published by wallpaper manufacturer Bobbi Beck found Americans could save as much as $5,118.21 by carrying out DIY projects themselves rather than outsourcing work.
Klich was taking on something a little more complicated than just applying some wallpaper though. Watching videos on TikTok and YouTube, she quickly understood that epoxy is a "huge process" that can easily go wrong.
"Not only is epoxy very difficult to work with, you have to prep the floors by grinding the concrete with a floor sander," she said. "If the floor is not properly prepped, the epoxy will fail with time."
Though she wasn’t against taking the challenge on, she had to keep in mind the fact that funds were limited. "I knew that if I messed it up it was costly and labor intensive to redo, atop if I did not prep the floor properly, it would fail on me and I'd have to redo it, "she said.
She began to look at alternatives to creating neat concrete floors. Most of the garage paint kits she saw in retail stores were "pretty boring" to Klich but while browsing TikTok one day she came across a video by the user @greeneyedgirl321, that caught her attention.
..."She did her concrete bathroom floors using a watered down method," Lich said. "It gave the exact look I was going for, a grunge marbled look." The method involved using different color paint samples, often available for as little as $6 each, mixed with water and sprayed on the surface.
Watching the video, Klich was inspired to take the same approach. She set to work soon after, capturing the process in a video posted to her TikTok @mewisme700. "I did a very basic floor prep using the concrete etching solution and a floor scrubber, and played around with two shades of blue and a metallic blue until I got the look I was looking for," she said.
"After it all dried, I sealed it with two coats of a garage concrete sealer gloss which I added a touch of glitter to for some extra razzle-dazzle."
The result is something that bears an uncanny resemblance to an epoxy floor but with one key difference. Rather than shelling out over $4,000 or running up expenses trying to do it herself, Klich’s alternative method, inspired by social media, left her just $200 out of pocket.
She posted a picture of the new floor to Reddit, where some expressed concern "the entire thing will peel within a year." Klich is not overly concerned. "The original Tik Tok user said hers still looks great after a year. So we'll see what happens," she said. "I'm very pleased with it. Saved a ton of money, even if it isn't as durable as epoxy."
After sacrificing so much to get this far, Klich is just happy to be one step nearer to the stained glass studio she has always wanted.
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