Garage Flooring

What UPS Left Me

They showed up at lunchtime yesterday. Donna called me at work and asked if I’d come home and move them into the garage. So I did. They had to go in the laundry room for now because that was the only place those big ol’ boxes would fit and not be in the way.

Last night we went to Home Depot and bought the landscaping fabric for underneath the tiles and I’m hoping to put them down on Sunday, but I have a couple of other things on my honey-do list that have to be done first.

  • First thing I need to do is cut up the long pieces of junky press wood I used to test my 1/2″ is enough to get over my personal speed bump theory and put it in the outside trash can.
  • Second on the list is to hook up our new garden hose reel for the backyard.

About a week ago in the middle of the night I heard a loud thump outside the bedroom. My first thought was a a tree branch falling and hitting the roof, but in the morning I looked on the front roof and ground under neath it and found nothing. I went around back and looked over the deck area and on the deck and found nothing. Walked around the gable end of the screened porch and because of the angle and trees I couldn’t see the roof, but when I looked down I saw what was left of the garden hose reel that was attached to the wall. The back and one side were still up, but the other side and the 150′ of hose on the reel was on the ground. I guess 25 years is the lifespan of a plastic wall mounted hose reel.

Why RaceDeck?

When I started this quest I started at Garage Flooring Inc. because they at least were up front on their prices compared to RaceDeck & Swisstrax. I asked for some samples so I could see what these things looked like. They sent me three 3″ square pieces of tiles in the colors and styles I asked for. I played with patterns and colors and even ordered another set of 3 sample pieces.

For fun I went to the other two competitors and designed a similar floor and asked for quotes. Swisstrax’s cost was like 3 times the cost of Garage Flooring Inc., they are obviously aiming at the Porsche & Ferrari markets, not Miata owners.

Racedeck came back about 25% more than the Garage Flooring Inc. Hmmm. These folks also had something that intrigued me, a tile that interlocked with the typical plastic tiles, but had a covering of commercial grade carpet on top. Because our laundry room is in the back of the garage we have a rug runner along side the car to walk back and forth, this might be a nice alternative to putting that runner back over the top of the tiles. I asked for three different samples, including one of the carpet tiles.

They sent me 3 full size tiles! No bitty pieces for them and they got my request right the first time. And if you look above you can see that the underside of the full RaceDeck tile is much more substantial looking than the smaller Garage Flooring Inc. piece. So I placed an order. Estimated delivery date 7/20.

This Is It!

Tomorrow is the last dose of the second course of steroids and I handled it real well over vacation and the first day at work, but for some reason, reason ran off the rails today and continues unabated into the weeds tonight.

I am not allowed to change this pattern! I’ve just spent the last 3 hours playing around with various patterns for the garage floor tiles. Any number of checkerboards, stripes, diagonals and at least twice randomly selecting colors then randomly selecting squares…

The right hand side is 2-wide carpet tile aisle that interlocks with the regular tiles (it is there because that is the path by the car to the laundry room.) The other 2-wide outside areas are the regular coin tiles in Graphite which is similar in color to the carpet. The center section is 4 x 4 checkerboard squares of Alloy & Royal Blue grated flow tiles for drainage.

It’s Been A Week

About time to talk about garage flooring again, don’t you think?

Before I had finalized my design last Friday night, just to be sure I opened up a live chat with someone off the Garage Flooring, Inc webpage. I wanted to be sure, even though they looked like it online from pictures, that my Diamond Grid-Loc tiles would, well, lock, with the Vented Ultra-Loc tiles I wanted under the car.

Chat Transcript
08:08:14 AM [Brian] Diamond Grid-Loc can mate to the Vented Ultra-Loc?
08:08:22 AM [Teanna] Hello Brian Thanks for clicking to chat with me! I’m happy to help!!
08:08:34 AM [Teanna] yes
08:08:54 AM [Teanna] they are able to click together
08:09:25 AM [Brian] That was simple, sort of figured they would, but wanted to make sure.
08:09:33 AM [Brian] Thanks.
08:09:48 AM [Teanna] your very welcome is there anything else I can helpy ou with today?
08:10:50 AM [Brian] No that’s it, I saved an order, but first I’m going to order a sample of each my chosen colors. Thanks again.
08:11:01 AM [Teanna] great idea!

The samples came in the mail today. The pieces are only about 4″ square, but all three did in fact show at least one of the connections. The Graphite Diamond Grid-Loc had a male end and the Gunmetal Diamond Grid-Loc had a female end and no surprise, clicked right in. The Vented Ultra-Loc not a chance.

And when think about it, why would they? Grid-Loc. Ultra-Loc. They don’t even sound the same. The Grid-Loc tiles have 4 connections a side while the Ultra-Loc tiles have twice as many. Maybe why the superlative sounding Ultra was used? What I really meant to ask was do the Diamond Grid-Loc tiles mate to the Vented Grid-Loc tiles. So we had a customer who knew what he wanted to ask, asked it wrong and a CSR confirm that his incorrect request would work in a situation where it clearly wouldn’t. Or maybe I really do have Jedi Mind Powers!

This sample order was helpful on a couple fronts. Turns out I didn’t like the Diamond texture, so I’ll go with the Coin pattern instead. Plus the Grid-Loc vented tiles are 40¢ each cheaper than the Ultra-Locs.

I played around with a couple different designs. Instead of a 1′ square checkerboard pattern, doing a 4′ checkerboard, and looked OK on the web page, but would be too large for the small garage. Then I tried a diagonal stripe pattern, which I thought looked OK on the web too, but not enough to commit to really using it. I really thought this snake skin look would be just too cool park on! But we still have bipartisan support for last Friday’s small checkerboard surrounding a black vented middle.

Peach Parade Pre-Breakfast & One Last Garage Floor Mockup


Today was the MMC’s annual trip to the Twin Lakes airport for breakfast before heading over to Trenton, SC to drive in the Peach Festival Parade. There were 8 Miata lined up in front of the Restaurant but only 6 drove the parade. There was one Club couple along for the drive, but had other obligations so the couldn’t stay. And one random Miata who is a local, and eats that the Airport Grill every Saturday, and we see him there every year. The parade participation seemed kind of light, but mostly is because they were calling for rain all week and it scared away a few groups, but we had a beautiful and a slightly quick parade drive. The crowds along the route seemed diminished too, but we still ran out of candy to toss for the last 50 yards…

I took a couple photos of the garage floor this morning so I could do a quick mock up of the proposed floor in the garage this morning. Not bad. We have some old light blue paint left over from a bathroom, so I may see about laying it over the crappy darker wood paneling on the wall with windows to spruce the place up more.


54,000 Garage Floor Ideas

Sixty-six Black Vented Ultra-Loc Tiles for the center where the CTBNL will sit, surrounded with a checkerboard border of a combination of Graphite & Gunmetal Diamond Grid-Loc Tiles, two tiles wide except three at the back that will be about where the car sits, 94 total. Finishing off the end near the laundry room with the ten of the 3″ edge pieces in red. Total, a little over $450. The only other expense will be about $20 of landscape fabric to quiet the plastic tiles on the concrete floor.

On the way to work this morning the Miata moved past 54,000 miles.

Personal Speed Bump

The driveway slopes down as it nears the end towards the door, rises up to the door and then drops again into the garage, forming a low wide pyramid. When we brought home the first stock Miata back in 1989, the car bottomed out with a quick thunk on the frame rail with both of us in the car. A coworker at the time helped me solve the issue by filling in most of the area in between the external down then up portion.

The Emperor was lowered slightly and with this fix in place it would only bump if I didn’t slow down a notch before entering. The CTBNL is just slightly lower than the Emperor and as a consequence of that I need to take more care entering the garage at all times. With just the driver it is not too bad. Add a trunk full of groceries and you really have to creep in slowly. Add a passenger and the car hits bottom every time on the high point where the garage door closes on right under my butt.

Donna has taken to not getting into the Miata before we leave and getting out before I drive in. This is fine in a way though, as long as it is not raining, because it makes it easier to get in or out. When I park the Miata in the garage I have to pull to left and just clear the tandem up against the wall on my side and there are cabinets on her side that leave barely 18 inches to open the door and then squeeze in (with the top up and holding a purse and travel mug this is a giant feat of gymnastics.)

At first I though my easy solution would be to extend the interior slope of my wide pyramid about a foot or maybe two with a few bags of Quikrete like we did in 1989. But the other day I had both of us ride into the garage just until we hit bottom. We squeezed out of the car because the doors lined up with the garage door. I then measured the length from the bottom of the pyramid to to the front tire and it came to about 5-1/2 feet. Wow. I’d have to raise the floor up, for at least a half inch about 6 feet into the garage. So much for a couple bags of Quikrete.

My next though was to get some of those 12″ x 12″ plastic tiles and lay them down. Because of the cabinets on one side and the inside of my personal speed bump 10′ x 16′ would cover the floor nicely. I think because the car is not hitting very hard the half inch thick tiles might just do the trick, I’d still have to slow down some, but both of us could ride inside. Total cost would be $420 to 430 depending on tile color selection. The black ones are cheaper. The new garage door has no windows so it is dark enough in there already color in the floor would be almost necessary. For grins I went to one of the sites design tools to see what it might look like. What do you think? Classic Checkerboard or Stripes?