I want to make my floorboards pale?

[duplodancer]

I have recently discovered floorboards, currently varnished a reddy brown colour.

I'd like them to be quite a pale colour. Love the idea of white/cream painted floorboards but worried the homogeneity (err where did that word just come from?) of any paint all the same colour will really show the dirt.

Do I have any other options?

We have white painted floor boards which look great but I'm constantly cleaning them. It is mainly cat pawprints though, so maybe not too bad if you don't have pets/kids?!

Hmmm no that definitely doesn't sound like it will work!

We sanded ours then used osmo ployx hardwax oil in a white wash-y colour. The wood shows through buy they're a nice pale colour -if the floor wasn't entirely covered in stuff I'd take a picture for you

That sounds like the sort of thing I was hoping for Princess, thank you

I'd go with Princess - nice to see some wood grain coming through and although pale effect overall, hard wax oil is really easy to keep clean. We have it too. It's amazing stuff. Added benefit that when you come to redoing the floor one day, you only have to clean it really well, then reapply hardwax oil, without having to sand (which you'd need to do if you'd used a paint instead).
My friend has white painted floors and regrets then every day- lovely for a magazine, pain in the arse in reality.
You'll need to sand your floors right back though, before you apply the hard wax oil. Also, it's quite tricky to do very evenly. We used a roller brush for our floor! Better than a paint brush any day. And we lightly sanded after every layer, before reapplying, for extra smooth finish.
Good luck!

Just to second what saveoursouls says - the sanding back is a big job and very messy if you do it yourself - you will definitely need to redecorate afterwards. It's not for the faint hearted. You can get a company in to do it with these brand new machines that suck all the dust out of the air, but I haven't seen those available to rent (though I may just not have looked hard enough). Having them sanded for you will be more expensive, and you might well find that you could lay a new floor for not much more than it would cost to sand and wax (especially when you consider that you'll probably get more insulation and be warmer that way, so save a few quid on energy bills too).

It's not that bad. We didn't redecorate. Just emptied the room. Then dusted. And dusted. And dusted.

We hired a sander from hss. It sucks up some of the dust. It is noisy and heavy but definitely a DIY job unless you've got the resources to get someone in to do it

Oh and the osmo people do like a little broom for applying. It goes on very easily. We didn't sand in between and did, I think, two coats

And lastly, I promise! If you've got gaps we used stop gap. It's like a roll of plastic that folds into a v shape. You shove it in the gaps and it opens up to block them. It definitely made a difference draftwise

I'm really keen to do the White floors but was put off by the cleaning. Princess- Would love to see a picture of your floor

Amazing thank you! That's all really helpful. We're going to do exactly what you've done.

We also have osmo white waxed floorboards. I do regret it as it's become quite patchy and dirty looking especially in the hallway and kitchen but think it will look much better if we clean and rewax the whole floor. It will be a big job though so not looking forward to it. We also used ordinary floor cleaner to mop and think it would have lasted better with the Osmo cleaner they recommend. I do sometimes think about getting it all sanded and stained with a standard wood stain instead. It was only done last Easter.

It's lovely on unwalked on areas, not so good on busy bits and a disaster is someone treads on a cartridge!