Don’t start a garage makeover without checking out these fantastic budget-friendly ideas. Keep your garage floor coating cost down without sacrificing quality.
More than half of all homeowners enter their houses through their garages. If their garage floors are rough, that won’t be a pleasant entry. They’ll likely trip and perhaps even fall and injure themselves.
Plus, coming home after a long day to a cracked gray floor can tank your mood. You should keep your garage floor safe and looking its best. The right covering or coating can do this for your garage floor.
However, you may be wondering if you can afford such an addition to your garage floor. Yes, a garage floor coating cost can get expensive. However, not all types of garage floor coatings are expensive.
Read on to learn about some inexpensive garage floor coating options.

Rubber Mats
If you want a nice soft surface to walk on, consider laying down rubber mats. They’re also easy to clean and can keep the garage warm in the months when it’s cold.
Not So Durable
Unfortunately, rubber isn’t that durable of a material. You’ll find that car tracks can make huge, unattractive ruts on rubber floors over time. Rubber floors would be better for someone who has, say, a home gym in their garage.
Laminate Flooring
Laminate flooring is a synthetic flooring that manufacturers design to look like real wood. It’s also composed of several layers. The top layer is an imprinted texture image and the core is made from fiberboard and melamine resin.
Somewhat Weak
It’s a beautiful option for garage flooring. However, keep in mind that it won’t hold up to the typical heavy traffic garages usually experience. Plus, since it is partially made of wood composite, moisture can destroy it easily.
Okay For Car-Less Garages
Still, it’s not completely out of the question. It may be a good option if your garage is mainly used to store things. If you park your car in your garage, however, you should get another garage covering idea.
Carpet Tile
Yes, you can place a carpet in your garage. However, it’s never a good idea to put traditional floor carpeting in a garage. The heat and chemicals in garages will destroy this type of carpeting quickly.
Auto Use Carpet
No, you want carpet tiles that are made to be garage floor material. The synthetic fibers in these can resist mold, fire, staining, moisture, and more. It also insulates the garage from noise and cold and creates a warm atmosphere.
Difficult to Deal With
This type of garage floor covering can be hard to clean at times. You can deal with smaller spills with mild detergent and use vacuums for more solid spills. Larger messes, however, can be near impossible to deal with.
Concrete Sealers
Sealers may be enough if you’re on a tight budget. They can, at least, offer your floor some protection. They can also give your plain gray concrete floor a beautiful sheen.
Latex and Acrylic Sealers
Acrylic and latex sealers stick well to concrete. They also make great paint primers. However, they are very vulnerable to the chemicals your car may drip onto the floor.
Urethane Sealers
Urethane sealers are great at resisting chemicals and sun damage. However, they struggle to bond to concrete floors.
Concrete Paint
Is the gray color of your garage floor the only thing you hate? Well, there’s an inexpensive way you can change this color to something else. This is concrete paint.
Tougher Than Wall Paint
Yes, you can use regular wall paint to paint your garage floor. However, you can’t expect this to last as long as concrete paint. Wall paint isn’t as tough as concrete paint.
Only So Tough
Still, concrete paint is only tough to a point. It’s easily damaged by road salts and other chemicals. As they say, you get what you pay for.
When Touching It Up
The good news is that garage floor maintenance is easy when you have garage floor paint. You can just touch up any damage that occurs.
However, you will have to thoroughly clean the floor up beforehand so the paint sticks. You may not appreciate having to do all of this hard work.
Concrete Stains
Do you want to have a natural stone floor but can’t afford it? That’s where concrete stains can come in.
Resembles Stone
These decorations can soak straight into your concrete floor and will stay there. After you do this, your concrete floor will show through. The resulting look will resemble natural stone.
No Protection
However, you will have to put on multiple coats of the stuff on your floor and use a scrub brush to work them in. Plus, unlike a polyurea garage coating, concrete stains provide no protection. Moisture and chemicals will still attack your concrete floor and wear them down over time.
Not For Discolored Concrete
On top of that, you can’t put concrete stains on discolored concrete. All of the already-present concrete stains show through. So if you’re more worried about garage floor appearance than its durability, this can be a good choice.
Learn More About Garage Floor Coating Cost
As you can see, you don’t have to break the bank to make your garage floor look good. Just keep in mind that you’ll do a lot more garage floor maintenance with these options. Garage floor durability is usually low when the garage floor coating cost is low.
Do you want to learn about what different types of garage floor cost? Do you want to learn more about how to update your home at the same time? If so, consider looking at the articles in our Real Estate & Home sections.