As you might now know, I am blogging over at the Home Blog (as well as here at the Frugal Blog and there at the Computing Blog), and I am sharing my family’s adventure as we clean out our garage.
Now that the garage floor is nice and clean, my husband has mentioned painting it. Not only will it look much better painted, but it will help improve our home. Having the garage floor painted will also help it serve another function, as an impromptu place for gathering with friends and family during parties, when we need to expand our living space for a play area, or for serving food. By rolling out an area rug over a nicely painted floor, we can create a temporary room. We would essentially be expanding usable living space, when the car isn’t parked in it of course.
Anyway, painting the garage floor (you may want to paint your basement floor instead) could cost $100 or so for the paint. An easy way to save on that amount by at least 75 percent is to check with the paint store for oil-based “goofs.” A goof is a paint that was tinted the wrong color. You want oil paint for unsealed cement. It will work very well.
Buy as much as you need (a standard basement floor will probably take less than 5 gallons and cost less than $25). When you get home, mix it all together. You’ll probably wind up with a shade of gray, off white or light tan, depending on your collection of paint. But for a basement or garage floor, those colors would work just fine.
If you want to get fancy, you can mix the lightest colors together and the darkest colors together. Then using painters tape, lay out a checkerboard or other pattern on the floor.
You can use a similar strategy for regular indoor paint as well. Click here to learn how by reading Secret Sources of Free and Low Cost Paint.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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