Opinions sought on my plan to paint the floorboards in my two teenage DDs bedrooms

[Sonnet]

So, the 2 DD's have attic bedrooms on the third floor of our old house (this is important). They have currently got carpet which has seen far far better days and is now covered in make up and fake tan mistakes....

I need to replace the flooring as part of a re-decorating plan for both DD's. Money for this project is not plentiful. The easiest thing to do is replace the carpet (Both rooms have got thick underlay which does not need replacing) but it is totally impractical for teenage girls. I really want something that spills can be mopped up. Carpet would have marks on it within the year even if they were "extra careful".

Laminate or laying a wood floor over the existing boards is not in our budget as the floor is uneven and all joists would have to be re-laid (done it in the rest of the house and even finding someone who wants to do it is hard!). the current floorboards are okay - not great - but not bad.

So, the idea was born of painting the floor. The girls are favouring a light grey colour and are prepared to help with the hard work.

What pitfalls are there? will it be as practical in reality as it will be in my mind?

Thanking you all....

If they are going to inevitably stain whatever flooring, couldn't you just go with a big rug each that would cover all visible floor area but could be replaced/washed? If they choose a rug in their colour of preference maybe they would be more careful to avoid spillages?
Some kind of wooden tray/box for make up and fake tan might be an idea?

I have painted floorboards before now. I sanded first, filled minor holes. Have done a wood stain with matt varnish plus full on coloured gloss (complete with painted fish).

Personally I love it. Plus unless they were terrible no need to replace skirting.

But yes it will be noisy. You can reduce the noise with insulation under the floorboards, but that isn't easy or cheap. Can also reduce some noise with rugs.

I would say carpet. Polypropylene and not pale. They might want pale, but tough. Plus get one with a fleck to hide minor marks. With strategic cheap and washable rugs.

Absolutely no way, we have the same set up - floorboards with huge rug, no shoes up there and the noise at night is making us count the days until she moves out...

You hear everything!

Just get a new large (cheap rug) to freshen it up?

An Update for everyone who helped me by posting.

One room done, just started second room

We decided to go for the floorboards in the first room and if it did not workout we would re-carpet.
When we pulled up the carpet and underlay we were delighted with the lovely floorboards - solid thick boards with only a tiny bit of damage where they were lifted to get to pipework) in one corner. As we had to lift the boards in that corner to repair we decided to lift a few more and shove some leftover insulation we had down there. I reckon we got fairly even coverage over the floor. We then made the decision to stain them a very dark oak colour (as we have genuine oak boards that colour elsewhere in the house) rather than paint with floor paint.

We are delighted with the result and after living with them for 10 days (which included a 3 girl sleepover) now I can honesty say it is nowhere as noisy as I was lead to believe it could be. Maybe an old house thing?

Thanks for all your opinions - they were all valued and appreciated (except the ones that made the make up the issue )

Sounds great. Any pics?

So glad it's worked out!!!

7 weeks until eldest moves out and no more elephants above our bedroom...

glad it's worked out for you!

We've an old house and the boards are in a reasonable enough condition to paint or stain, but we threw down laminate to contain some of the draughts and it's really not that noisy...we've also got rooms in the roof, also hard floored.

i might finally get around to painting the bathroom floor!

I cannot bear carpets! Rugs are fine, carpets are not.

I would put down new carpet but then cover with a big cheap rug (huge nice ones from ikea for £30ish).

but what are they doing to trash the carpets? My mum would have killed me if I'd marked the carpet! And I've grown up able to live in houses and not trash them. Unlike my ex housemate who used to leave make up lying about and they got surprised that she got her deposit deducted for trashing the carpet. Dirty mare.

Oh I totally missed the update.

Glad you like them.

I really hate floorboards in bedrooms tho!

whois - the carpets were laid in Septembet 1997 so I consider we have had our monies worth (over 18 years old). One was cream (originally it was our room) and one was a bright green colour as it was chosen to match a colour scheme for my then 2 year olds room. The cram one had black marks around the edge of the room and then around furniture had been . The rooms are fairly large and have been used as bedrooms and playrooms for years. They have had foundation and bronzer spilt on them in a few places and one had a burnt mark where hair straighteners had been dropped. One also has a fake tan stain (although I got that out leaving a pale stain on the carpet). Both my girls are tidy and respectful of their bedrooms. These are just accidents that can and do happen with not only my teens but visiting teens as well. After 18 years the carpets were just generally grubby and had 'had it'. My teenagers rooms are a lot better than many others I have seen ! Whilst I would have been happy to lay a new carpet I was just concerned that another accident may happen I possibly laboured the point about make up et cetera to make my point that a hard floor would be more practical otherwise I was concerned the responses would just be 'hard floors are cold just re-carpet ', or "why are you even considering a cold hard floor in a bedroom". Only on mums net can I ask a question about DIY and get criticised of my parenting skills
This response is not aimed at you Whois In particular as I consider Stepawayfromthe thesaurus to be quite out of order with her response up thread. This thread was started in DIY not teenagers of which there are plenty of threads about teenage bedrooms

Sounds like you got decent innings out of your last lot of carpet! 29 years is v impressive so there can't have been too much trashing going on :-)

I went ape at a teenage dd when she dropped makeup (black eye pencil sharpenings) into a new wool carpet. It never came out. I made her understand that in future she sharpened such things into the bin, or in the bathroom. Otherwise there would be major trouble.
We later had spilt tea, Ribena, etc. in both dds' rooms.

Another time I would not waste money putting that sort of good carpet in a teenage bedroom. You can get perfectly nice washable carpets nowadays, polypropylene or whatever. I would never have considered them once, I thought they were horrible, but a dd has recently put just such a carpet in a spare room, and it both looks and feels very nice. I think they've improved a lot.

I wouldn't want any bare floorboards upstairs, not if the rooms are over others that are regularly used. Just too noisy.

Oh I thought you said 1987 not 1997. Still a good innings!

Whois - 29 years lol

Yup - gone ape sbout every spill! They do get better though - not had an issue for at least 2 years ( part of the reason for a redecoration/reorganisation of our 3rd floor).

Not noisy GettingLikemymother - but I accept it is a solid old house and we had used insulation underneath. Maybe a different story in a newer build.

My sister has new polypropylene carpets and I was very impressed and would certainly consider them when replacing carpets in other parts of the house.

My two DDs had left home so I made one room a White Company dream. White floors, white walls, white painted armoire. You guessed it, youngest moved back home . She is the most slovenly girl I've ever met but everything can be wiped off the floor. I envy you your dark floors.

Wow - I would love "white Company Dream" maybe the spare room?

It was the spare room till she came back 😢