Does anyone have painted floors?

[DianeS]

I have a painted concrete floor in my basement family room. It's such a huge room I couldn't fathom paying the money to carpet or laminate it. So I bought just three gallons of paint - a thick latex paint that Lowes had mistinted for a different customer, and just did it. I figured if I hated it I could cover it up then! That was three years ago and I still like the look. It's a mahogany red color, and rather worn (kids with legos will do that to paint) and at first glance visitors tend to think it is hardwood.

It did take the paint a LONG time to dry. Perhaps it takes walls just as long to dry?, but people don't tend to put weight against a wall the same way they do on a floor. The floor would look dry, it would feel dry, then I'd step on it and paint would show up on my shoes. My recommendation is to plan for at least three times the expected drying time.

Enjoy!

 

[Marianne]

Have I welcomed you yet?

Yes, concrete does take a while to dry! I'm painting plywood, so that should dry faster. The biggest problem is keeping the cats off. I'll probably do it a section at a time until the final coats and both DH and I can roll it and set up some barrier...(s)...and move the litter box.

 

[keljonma]

We live in an old farmhouse with wood plank flooring that has been painted. It looks like they used deck paint, as we found a bunch of cans left here when we moved in.


A few years or so ago, Backwoods Home Magazine had an entire article with pictures and step-by-step process for painting floors. The person who wrote the article was going for a river rock theme, if I remember correctly; but it should at least give you some tips.


Good luck and have fun!

 

[Farmfresh]

I had a painted floor in my kitchen for quite a while and it was OK but I was not to pleased with the quality of floor paints available out there. If I had to do this again, I might consider using milk paint for the job. It has qualities that regular paint lacks.

 

[~gd]

I had a painted floor in my kitchen for quite a while and it was OK but I was not to pleased with the quality of floor paints available out there. If I had to do this again, I might consider using milk paint for the job. It has qualities that regular paint lacks.

Yep I am quite a fan of milk paint, but it does NOT wear well.

 

[~gd]

I have a painted concrete floor in my basement family room. It's such a huge room I couldn't fathom paying the money to carpet or laminate it. So I bought just three gallons of paint - a thick latex paint that Lowes had mistinted for a different customer, and just did it. I figured if I hated it I could cover it up then! That was three years ago and I still like the look. It's a mahogany red color, and rather worn (kids with legos will do that to paint) and at first glance visitors tend to think it is hardwood.

It did take the paint a LONG time to dry. Perhaps it takes walls just as long to dry?, but people don't tend to put weight against a wall the same way they do on a floor. The floor would look dry, it would feel dry, then I'd step on it and paint would show up on my shoes. My recommendation is to plan for at least three times the expected drying time.

Enjoy!

A good paint man can sell you a dryer to make it dry faster but it will be brittle.

 

[MorelCabin]

I used to paint alot of my floors...and loved it! That was years ago now and I don't remember what I used for filler, but I do recall that I used pretty much any paint available, stencilled rugs and borders and all kinds of stuff on them to create "area carpets". Then I always put on two or three coats of clear polyurethane.
Give the floor a good sanding before you start, I just used a palm rotary sander.

 

[Farmfresh]

I had a painted floor in my kitchen for quite a while and it was OK but I was not to pleased with the quality of floor paints available out there. If I had to do this again, I might consider using milk paint for the job. It has qualities that regular paint lacks.

Yep I am quite a fan of milk paint, but it does NOT wear well.

After painting it with the milk paint you could always clear coat it like they do hardwood floors. As I understood the question however, she is OK with the floor looking soft and worn. Right?

 

[tortoise]

I had a painted floor. I had hardwood floors. I didn't have money to refinish them, so I painted them to protect them. The first attempt was white. So, so pretty, but didn't hold up to heavy dog traffic. The second paint was porch floor paint. It held up very, very well. It did scuff and lose some gloss, but we had HIGH WEAR on the floors, everywhere. Unfortunately it only came in a couple premixed colors, so I had dark brown floors. (ick)

 

[Marianne]

Right, I want it to look old and worn. No matter what I do, it will be worn in the area where I have my chair in front of my desk.

(babbling deleted)

Of course, it's the top coat that determines the wear. We can cover the floors with glued on tissue paper as long as there's plenty of urethane over it.

I got all the smaller stuff out of the room yesterday. Now the space seems huge and a somewhat daunting task. I am going to do a small-ish area first to see how it looks. Right now I'm more concerned that when I sand the 'worn' areas, the paint will peel instead of just sand down to the first color or the wood. I hope that plenty of cure time between coats will help with that.