Choosing a finish
Flake, solid color or metallic: what is the difference?
Flake hides dirt and old slab repairs, solid color shows everything, and metallic is a swirled decorative finish for a room you spend time looking at.
The short version
- Flake is the finish on most residential garage and basement floors.
- Flake hides dust, tire marks and the patches under it. Solid color hides nothing.
- Flake leaves a light texture underfoot. Solid and metallic come out smoother.
- Metallic is decorative, and it suits a room people sit in more than a work floor.
- The finish and the topcoat are separate choices. Any of the three can take a textured topcoat.
What a flake floor looks like
Flake is colored chip broadcast into the base coat while it is wet, then locked under a clear topcoat. Up close it reads as speckle. From standing height it reads as one color with movement in it. The chip comes in blends, so the mix can be pulled toward gray, tan, blue or whatever the room is asking for.
The reason it ends up on most garage and basement floors is that it hides things. Dust between cleanings, tire marks, and the slab repairs underneath it. Concrete that took a lot of crack chasing and patching still reads as a floor once there is flake over it, because the eye has nowhere to settle.
It also leaves texture. Broadcast heavy, the chip edges stand up through the topcoat and you can feel them underfoot, which is worth something on a floor that gets wet. A lighter broadcast comes out smoother.
Solid color and metallic
Solid color is exactly that: a base and a topcoat in one color with no chip in between. It comes out smooth and even, and in a shop or a commercial room it reads clean and deliberate. It is also the easiest of the three to sweep, because there is no texture holding grit in place.
What it does not do is hide. Every patch, every trowel mark left in the concrete, every low spot that holds a little water and every tire mark shows on a solid floor, and it shows more the darker the color is.
Metallic is a different thing again. Metallic pigment gets worked into a clear resin so the color moves through the floor in swirls, and no two floors come out alike. It belongs where somebody is going to look at it: a finished basement, a showroom, an entry, a bar area.
Which suits which room
Garages usually get flake. It stands up to what a garage does, it hides winter, and the texture helps when the floor is wet from a vehicle. A shop floor or a commercial room often goes solid, because a plain even floor looks right under equipment and reads as clean to whoever walks in.
Basements go either way. A basement that is storage and laundry usually gets flake. A basement that is a finished room or a home gym gets whatever the room wants, and that is where metallic comes up most. Patios and pool decks are their own conversation, because sun and bare feet change the answer.