When you're tired of painting your concrete garage floor move up to something a whole lot better.

I just did. It seemed no matter how often I painted, there was always concrete dust coming up. To make matters worse my floor is less than perfect. There are some cracks, bumps and dips that I just can't easily fix. So, I decided to cover it all up with something better.

Floor is a work in progress...

I found that these plastic snap-together tiles are just the trick. They require no special tools and no adhesive. Preparation of the floor is as simple as sweeping it clean. The tiles are one foot square and made of a plastic material. They are rigid yet flexible enough to "float" over the imperfections in my concrete floor. The tiles are easy to cut with a box cutter against a metal straight edge. I worked on a small piece of plywood to protect the floor.

The tiles come in a variety of colors and surface patterns. I chose a "coin" design. Diamond plate is also available as are other patterns. The tiles are light enough to handle in boxes of 40 tiles (about 30 pounds). My tiles came preassembled in 2ft by 4 ft sections (8 tiles per sections with 5 sections, or 40 tiles, to a box). This really speeds up installation if installing large sections of one color. To do a checker board pattern they would need to be taken apart but this is easy.

Designs vary but the brand I bought come apart using a large flat screwdriver on the underside to pop the hooks out of tabs.

Being one foot square makes planning and pattern design easy. I drew out my 21x35 foot garage on graph paper and colored in squares. I chose 8x15 ft rectangles of different colors under each car in my garage surrounded by black tiles. For the back area of the garage I chose a solid color.

A tapered edge is available and recommended for the edge of the floor where cars will drive in. I used this along the 17ft wide garage door. In my "Wall-to-Wall" design I simply cut the tiless along each wall to fit using a partial tile on the left and right side of the garage. The tapered edge is about a quarter of an inch from the garage door.

I started at the garage door and worked from the center out to both side walls. This helped me align my color pattern under each car and also have a close to even partial tile at each wall. After setting a few full rows of tile in the full width of the garage I simply worked my way to the back wall. I found it easier to leave out all the partial tiles on the edges until the end and then do all the cutting at one time. A rubber mallet is recommened to pop the tiles together but I just used the palm of my hand. I think I would have gone for the mallet if I had done a checkerboard and needed to snap EVERY tile instead of my 8 tile sections.

Preparation was as simple as sweeping the floor clean before setting the tile down.

I shopped for my tile on the internet and found a company that shipped for FREE and had the lowest prices to boot. I ordered on a Wednesday and that Saturday FedEx made their first delivery of three boxes. The remaining 15 boxes were a "special" discount deal and apparently shipped from a different location. They arrived the following Wednesday.

The hardest part of putting in the floor was shifting all my stuff from one part of the garage to another so the tiles could lay down. I love my new floor! Its easy to keep clean with a broom, then I go over it with a duster. It looks great and I wish I had done this years ago.

Plan your floor on graph paper.
The pattern will show how many of each color you need for your design.

Three boxes arrived on Saturday and FedEx left them in the carport. The last 15 boxed arrived and FedEx decided to put them on the front porch this time. Each box hold five sections, 2 tiles by 4 tiles.


The first three boxes that arrived were the red ones and I set them out and snapped the sections together just to see how they looked. When the others arrived, I started with black tiles at the front edge, just inside the garage door.

I snapped together the 2x8 panels for a solid color area.


For the single block row between red and yellow the panels were separated and re-snapped.


There is more to go but this section was done in a couple hours.