Coating a sloped concrete floor? Eye-popping colors and design? Nothing to it – just ask rapper Vanilla Ice

2017-08-31

Handyman Rob Van Winkle, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice, the rapper best known for his 1990 hit "Ice Ice Baby," has been renovating and flipping houses since the '90s. He and his "ninja" home improvement team star in the DIY Network show, "The Vanilla Ice Project," now entering its 8th season.

As Van Winkle and team wrapped up a season 5 project in Palm Beach, Florida, he wanted a dramatic floor for the property's huge two-car garage, big enough to drive through.

"Garage Enhancements [the installer] said they needed help with metallic effects and getting the colors Rob was looking for, so we got involved," says Adam Moore, VP of Flooring at Rust-Oleum. Citadel's polyurea floor coatings and Polycuramine™ metallic system fit the bill with 42 available colors, including the rich hues Van Winkle wanted.

Rob chose a deep red for the main floor field, to be cut with ribbons of silver and gold curving across the center of the floor in a "swoosh," as he called the design.

The challenge? Besides being a 3-color design over 850 square feet? The floor was seriously sloped, as much as 5 inches over a 10-foot span in one area. And any contractor who's installed a similar concrete coating knows how disastrous that can be with a self-leveling product such a Polycuramine base coat (normally a benefit, when covering a flat floor).

The metallic coating moves. So, how did the team prevent the coating from ending up in a pile in the driveway? Moore explains, providing a step-by-step how-to:

Tape off and install the accents, first.

First, the Garage Enhancements crew prepared the concrete substrate, then taped out the stripes for the swoosh. "We decided to apply the stripes first so we didn't walk on the main field area and possibly contaminate it attempting to apply stripes afterwards," Moore says.

Build up the tape to "wall in" the coating.

"We taped off with duct tape and used weather stripping to build it up so the slope wouldn't cause the coating to run over the tape line."

Match the right-colored primer to brighten the topcoat's color.

"We then applied primer in white to give our silver and gold colors some pop." Adam continues, "Once the primer was tacky, we applied the pigmented polycuramine coating using a 1/4-inch notched squeegee and back rolled, trying to be careful not to spill over into the main floor areas."

"Once the stripes were set but still tacky, we removed the masking tape to reveal clean lines to which the red would adjoin. We masked the stripes with tape and paper. Once done, we applied a black primer so it would add depth to the red and eliminate the risk of the floor looking pink."

The Polycuramine coating flowed and leveled out nicely, the colors contrasting along crisp, sharp lines. Van Winkle added black pin striping to the floor, and the Citadel team covered the whole with a single layer of Polyurea-1 HD™ mixed with Ultra Durability Plus Additive.

"The final result, [despite] the many challenges we faced, was a beautiful floor that boasts both creativity and durability and will show as well on TV as it does in person," concludes Moore.

A floor as smooth as Ice, Ice Baby. You can read the related LinkedIn article here, or check out a video clip of the episode here.

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