Homeowner Shares Shock $4000 Quote For Epoxy Floor — Does It Himself: 'Just A Sensible Decision'

An artist gets a quote for epoxy-coating his garage floor. Horrified at the $4,000 potential price tag, she spends $100 on a less robust solution and does it herself. On the street, at the water cooler, in line at Chipotle, and maybe even in a hardware store, a story like this would elicit responses like, "Sounds interesting. I wonder if that will work." On Reddit, a story like this is a call to arms. With apologies to Matthew Arnold, it's as if Redditors exist only in darkling rooms swept with confused alarms and complaint, where indignant armies clash over paint.

The original post to the DIY subreddit by u/mewisme700 that tallied 23,000 upvotes and 1,600 comments in 12 days simply read: "Got quoted over $4k for an epoxy floor in my garage. I did it for under $100 using watered-down paint in sprayers and sealed with a garage clear coat finish." The issues causing such an uproar are twofold: first, paint is not epoxy, so the original poster is likely being deceptive; and second, in a nutshell, "that ain't gonna work."

As we explore the rhetorical battlefields of this conversation, let's not lose sight of the fact that the subreddit being dominated by this clash of outrages is r/DIY, a forum devoted to people who do things for themselves when there aren't safety or legal reasons not to. And what you might expect is a discussion of the pros and cons of painting a garage floor. Or, at least, a helpful discussion of how to DIY epoxy a garage floor.

What u/mewisme700 neglected to mention in her original post was that she is an artist and uses her garage to make stained glass art. This obviously dramatically changes the demands on a garage floor. Epoxy coating is about durability, chemical resistance, and traction. But if you're not parking 4,000-pound cars with hot tires and leaky hoses, is proper coating worth it? Yet Redditors fell over themselves trying to point out how very unlike epoxy interior paint is. "Should be fine as long as you dont [sic] park any cars in there nor do any work," said u/ExactlyClose. Fortunately, this wasn't the only point of view.

Others say that, since the original poster's (OP) reason for upgrade the garage floor was to use it as a stained glass art studio, the diluted, clear-coated paint might be perfectly sufficient. Redditor u/Practical-Positive34 said, "Did the same thing you did, for a couple hundred bucks. I had great success in a previous home using the etching chemical that lasted over 6 years perfectly fine before I sold the house." Unfortunately, "sold the house" points to another vein of sulfurous brimstone in the dark mines of Reddit.

"Art studio now, what happens when plans change or OP sells?" asks u/gcnplover23, echoing users' concerns on behalf of future owners without free will, and others worried the floor might not suit future uses. The subtext here seems to be that a home is an investment, and you should avoid fully living in it if your actions won't improve its resale value. It reminds one of that old habit of putting plastic covers on couches.

A common Reddit mannerism that challenges this conversation is the passive-aggression of TIL ("today I learned"). For example, u/Available-Basis3617 wrote, "TIL watered down paint is same as epoxy floor." Others complained the floor would be slippery when wet, or that the prep work must surely have been insufficient, even though nothing has gone wrong yet.

Another complaint — that what the O.P. did wasn't equivalent to the quote it was compared to — leaves in its wake dozens of minds so distressed they're unable to form cogent metaphors. "Its [sic] like bragging that instead of a Michelin star full course, op saves by making a pb&j themselves," observes u/InternationalHermit. But the salient fact of any useful metaphor would be that the original product or service considered would be overkill, such as: I considered the tasting menu at a Michelin restaurant, but decided something freeze-dried made more sense for my backpacking trip. Redditor u/Futuretapes gets to the crux of the matter: "Criticism would have been garnered whether or not OP explained all that in the post body. This is reddit after all."

The most credible voices in this conversation were homeowners who've tried something similar, often successfully, and the frank but respectful exchange between the OP and u/herrerae0723, who owns an epoxy flooring company. u/MrSubmission appreciated this approach: "Thanks for being a positive, curious responder to OP. They had an idea and tried something." For her part, u/mewisme700 seems a little fed up. "Some of y'all are so insufferable on here. It's a garage floor, I promise it's not that deep," she wrote.