In my last shop, I had a concrete floor.  I had dressed it up as much as practical by adding one of those epoxy and paint chip finishes to it.  It looked great, but it was cold, hard, and unforgiving.  (Kind of like Stef if I ask her to buy me a Cinnabon…)  Well, when building this new shop, I was dead set against having another concrete floor.  I wanted wood.  But of course, this space came with acres of concrete.  What to do?

I did a lot of research on putting a wood floor over concrete, and the consensus sounded like a giant pain in the butt.  Plastic sheeting.  Pressure-treated sleepers.  Banging nails into concrete with gunpowder.  Insulating.  And finally a floor.  No thanks.  There had to be something easier.  I kept looking, and eventually came up with what you see in the video.  Behold!

 

The product I decided on was Dricore R+ Subfloor.  It wasn’t available locally – I had to order it in.  It’s basically an OSB subfloor bonded to an insulating and waterproof layer underneath.  The insulation actually provides an R-value of 3 between your feet and the concrete below – which should help with the coldness of the concrete.  The foam insulation also has some give to it, so it feels great underfoot – as opposed to brutally hard concrete.  And it’s a floating floor that assembles with a tongue and groove – which is WAAAAAYYYY easier than that gunpowder and plastic nonsense.

Once the floor was down, I wanted to put a finish on it.  Yeah… I know… the floor is just OSB.  A nice finish on OSB is kind of like lipstick on a pig.  But appearance wasn’t my main concern.  I basically just wanted to knock down the high spots and make it easier to sweep up.  I accomplished that with a (not so) quick sanding and three coats of water-based finishes.  I thought for a while about using an oil-based paint or finish.  But the thought of a super hard finish on super soft OSB didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, so the ease and speed of the water-based finish won the day.

I also included a couple Anti-Scorpion-Measures (ASMs) in the construction.  There’s not much out there on anti-scorpion construction techniques, so I’m kind of making that part up as I go.  I’m happy to report, I haven’t seen any scorpions in the shop space since initially clearing it out.  We’ll see how long that holds up.  I do still need to do something about those doors, but I’m kind of thinking we’ll get new garage doors soon, so that’s on hold for now.

So there you have it!  I have a floor.  Let me know what you think.

Next up… lighting!