Painting floorboards white

[cunningplan101]

Has anyone here painted their floorboards?

I'm going to buy reclaimed floorboards to go in my loft, and I'd love to have them painted white. How much faff is it to do? What are they like to live with?

Or another option is to buy pre-painted reclaimed floorboards - has anyone done that?

it's dead easy-just make sure the boards are sanded (a hand sander will do) and cleaned with white spirit. Then vacuum to within an inch of their lives. Use a wood paint, with gloss or satin and paint away. You can get paints specially for wood floors which are a bit more hard wearing but most just top it up and repaint every year.

I've used farrow and ball strong white an off white... 750 mls covered my large loft room twice and I did use there primer... I then covered with a large antique rug and I love it!

I clean with a hoover but it really doesn't show as much dust as the risers in my hall that I stained dark and varnished.

My only query would be are reclaimed boards cheaper? Cos if not why not just buy new ones, if you're going to paint them?

I've read that the quality of wood used to be better - esp if I'm getting pine boards, as it used to be slow-grown while nowadays it's grown quicker so less hard-wearing?

And even when painted, I think old boards would still have more character? But that might not be true.

Ours are painted in F&B wevet, not quite as stark as brilliant white. They were old pine boards and look fab now. Some of the knots show through - a bit like a stain, even though we used the primer too. Can't say it bothers me though. They are beautiful!

I want to paint the floorboards in my girls' room. Very jealous hearing about yours! (Their room is too full of stuff for me to even consider it any time soon..)

We painted the floor in our son's bedroom and it looks fab and was easy to do.

All of our upstairs is painted white floorboards and downstairs they're painted grey. I only did one coat downstairs and you can tell, they need repainting but it has been four years!