Proposal to Paint Interactive Classrom floor

Hey Everyone, has anyone noticed the floor in the Interactive classroom getting worse? Not sure how it got so bad, but its used for a lot of events. I use it a lot for the film crew meetings, but I wanted to see if people would be ok with us putting the labor to paint it, and/or put a coating on it.

Problem is, I don’t know much about how to do such a thing, but we have a lot of people who would be willing to help with it and get it done. We could also do the research on how to approach it, still, thoughts?

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@Classrooms_Team

Here would be my estimate of task:

  1. Classroom Committee Approval @Bill
    A. Funding
    B. Color - type of paint
  2. Floor prep, the worst part,
    A. Work Party day - Reserving room for entire day.
    B. Chipping, sanding, etc. to get it relatively smooth, etc.
    C. Finding Volunteers
  3. Painting
    A. Work Party day - Reserving room for entire day.
    B. Materials: Primer, if required, Type of Paint, etc.
    C. Finding Volunteers
  4. Mental ability to not kill people when floor starts to get chipped and scratched up again as people use room.

Maybe consider stripping all the paint off and sealing it might be better - just bare concrete. Not as pretty but that is an active workroom with tables sliding all about and other activities that brought it to it’s current state.

My guess is as the areas that get chipped out accellerate as the “hole” has a larger edge and a catches on things more making shipping faster.

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@mrsprovectus how labor intensive was that coating on the warehouse floor for our first storefront? That (minus the sprinkles) might be a good idea for that classroom…
I don’t remember what the stuff was called though

I’m not sure who all helped with the first floor treatment that we had in there, or even for sure what it was. The concrete had a blue stained look. I thought it looked really neat!

I want to say that I was told that part of the reason both the first stained type treatment and then the current paint started coming up was that the concrete had areas that needed to be patched up properly… The stuff that was used to fill some of the rough spots either breaks up and/or doesn’t ‘hold’ the stain/paint well…

That’s probably oversimplifying things a bit… It’s my (obviously not experienced in flooring) personal interpretation of the more detailed explanations that I’ve heard from various sources.

I believe @Gus_Reiter was the Classroom Chairperson during the two times when the floor has been tackled so far. He may be able to provide more accurate and detailed information about it…

All that being said, I totally LOVED how the stained treatment looked in there!!! This picture doesn’t do it justice, but may give you an idea of what I’m going on about. :wink: :smile:

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Challenge is it is hard to do a good job. Concrete grinding is tough work ask @Nick.

Plus any coating will put the room out of commission for days. Any slots available on the calendar?

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Thank you, that would help with the approach

That was also my favorite, I remember that floor was perfect and gave the room a really nice look. Plus the floor seemed tough enough to handle tables and chairs sliding around. I’m not sure what else goes on in there though so maybe it’s no longer a good option?

I think the toughest part is doing right, I’ve never done this. So if we had someone who had some good knowledge on how to properly do it, getting people rounded up for a “Renovation” deal is the easier part. Our group uses the room a lot, so we feel its the least we could do.

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Not an expert at all but have done this before. The key part and most difficult is the floor prep. To stain concrete, the surface needs to be cleaned to raw concrete. Depending on how many layers of paint, acryliic, sealer on there, it’s a big job and the chemicals are caustic. Usually muriatic acid to etch the concrete. Then it needs to be thoroughly washed, cleaned and dried before the stain is applied. If you want it to shine, then a acrylic sealer and buffing will need to be done. Another option would be an epoxy coating, but once again, the floor will need to be prepped. It’s a big job to do right and there will need to be plenty of ventilation.

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We used one of the garage floor coating kits (well, two kits actually, for around 1000sf). The actual application was really simple. We just rolled it on with paint rollers. It was the floor etching prep and the patching that was a pain, and it took 2-3 days to do all of it.
I want to say we used Rustoleum brand, but I know that’s not the only one on the market.

Whatever you end up using, I would suggest that you do not add any additional texture mix to the floor coating. We did, and it resulted in dust bunnies actually sticking to the floor, and they were nearly impossible to sweep up with a broom.

If y’all need any more tips or info, feel free to reach out!

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It would probably cost $3000-$4000 to do diy this right. You need a propane grinder to cut the concrete back to raw. At that point you would strain, cut polish, harden, then final polish. Would take 3 days. If you hired out it would probably add $1000-$2000.

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I would assume chemicals are out as you’d drive everyone from the building from the fumes and properly filtered (correct cartridges for type chemical) would be needed.

Not sure if they used them before but were there as many people around.

Maybe a BIG fix-the-place weekend could be set scheduled from a Friday night to Monday to allow all types of things to be scheduled so lots of little and big tasks could be achieved without having person’s projects in progress being interrupted or from preventing work.

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I can take a look at the floor next time I am there, but I’m thnkIng a quick clean and scrape to get loose paint up, then patch any holes and then a good TSP clean up and then just roll a good enamel on it and then touch up paint every few years to maintain it would be the quickest, simplest and cheapest option.

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I was thinking drop vinyl flooring over it.

We know that it can handle the abuse and it’s easy to install in a square room.

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This one is a bit interesting but at .50 cents a sq foot we could do the room for cheap and would likely not wear out for years.

https://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/mad/5831497774.html

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It’s cheap but that’s pretty ugly!. More durable surface would be tile if want to go that route with a cover. Easily find $1.00 per sq ft porcelain.

We run the risk of having to float the floor to level it if we use something rigid (i.e., brittle) like tile of any kind.

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While I am not known for my aesthetic concerns, that looks like a decent looking pattern. AND I would rather see us spend as little money as possible on asthetic concerns.

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My only request is that you don’t finish the floors that will be the annex (that small area off to the side). We have a plan for it and to spend time on it would be wasteful.were buying supplies for to start the room Saturday morning so hopefully we will have it up within a relative time.

I share the aesthetic concerns the most traditional vinyl is a wood look like below.

Thoughts about wood look?

ok

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