Painting hallway flooring

[suntodayplease]

Has anyone stripped varnished wooden floors and painted them white? I love the idea of this, but I'm looking for some inspiration and practical methods of doing this, paint colours, finishes etc. house is Victorian with a fairly long and dark hallway so I thought this might be a good way of brightening it up removing previous occupiers wallpaper would also be a good idea along with a lick of paint on the walls.

Has anyone painted the floor and then regretted it? Have recollection of the lovely slate floor in the kitchen that showed up every minute crumb!

Thanks

If the boards are pine, then yes, blimey, strip the varnish off and paint them. If they're oak or other hardwood definitely strip the varnish from them and protect with a compatible oil. Hardwoods need to be able to 'breathe'.

Yes, I have all my stairs and the upstairs hallway painted, I'm also just sanding the pine parquet flooring in my downstairs hallway and I going to put a white wash on it so that you will still see the wood, but it won't be that horrible orange pine colour.

The white painted floors are fine, they do get a bit dirty, but are easy to hoover and a quick wipe down with a damp cloth.

They do have a few scuffs and knocks now but have been painted for about 4 years so that's to be expected.

F & B, Little Greene, Designers Guild all make floor paint in any of their colours so you aren't limited to International floor paint, who only make a few colours, if you are sanding back make sure that you use the correct undercoat/primer before you put on the top coats, 2/3 top coats to get a good finish.

Good luck

Thanks for the replies. Floor boards are pine, very yellow pine! I think we are going to go for a whitewash effect, so you still see the wood grain. Partly as I imagine it's more work to get a block colour?

I thought this would be best achieved with a matt finish?

Soonbesailing - what did you do on your skirting boards? Gloss white?

I've a F&B colour card which I'm itching to start ordering samples from but walls need plastering first!

Not really any more work to get an even finish with floor paint than whitewash, as if you do a wash effect its quite tricky to get it even so takes quite a bit of work, then you need to varnish on top at least 3 coats.

I'm just finishing my hallway so sanded back to bare wood, put on a wash (not sure I'm 100% happy with how uneven it is but it looks shabby chic) then 3 coats of very matt varnish, quite a lot of work really, but the drying times are quite good.

I have read on a really good floor sanding website that you can add white emulsion to the varnish (as long as the varnish is water based) but I would have to try that first to see how it works.

If you use actual floor paint it is quite shinny, but more like eggshell than gloss.

My skirting boards are F & B All white eggshell (no gloss in this house!) mind you I work selling the stuff so I know what I like!

If you are working with new plastered walls make sure you do a mist coat with a cheap emulsion (or new plaster emulsion) first or it will suck up your expensive top coat !