Has anyone painted their floors?

[broccolibush]

I live in a fairly modern boxy flat with engineered wood flooring that has seen better days - it was installed by the developers 20ish years ago and has gone that horrible yellowy colour that some woods do after decades of exposure to the sun. It's also scratched and not as pretty as it might be.

It is, however, entirely functional as a floor and the green person inside me doesn't want to rip it up and send it to landfill and replace it (and the skirtings, and the doors). I'm also not keen on the upheaval or the cost of doing so. It's also the same flooring throughout our flat, aside from the bathrooms, so I don't think I can cope with replacing it bit by bit. I also know that some of the dents in it go entirely through the finish - it's engineered hardwood - so sanding and refinishing it won't be ideal. Also lots of dust.

I was looking at repainting some furniture recently and this sent me down an internet rabbithole about painting floors. Both rust-oleum and Annie Sloan chalk paint can allegedly be used on engineered wood without too much prep (a light sand and a good clean). Has anyone done this with good results? I'm quite happy - keen even - to do work like this myself and think that a dark painted floor might look really cool in a bright open plan flat.

If you have done it do you have any tips? Am I totally mad and about to ruin my floors?

I’ve painted our original floorboards; one room white (don’t do it, looks dirty instantly) and one room black (better, hides the dirt, but shows chips). Not sure how it would look on engineered wood.

Try a tester patch underneath a sofa or something to see how you like it? While you’ve got the sofa out the way you could also sand and lacquer a small patch to see if it looks better, even with dents, to have it refinished. The dents might add character!

Thanks for responding @stuntbubbles. I am planning a test patch in a cupboard or under some furniture, though there’s a big part of me who thinks fuckit just do it

I don’t think that lacquer would work - the floor is cheap and trashed and I’m really not keen on the yellow tones of it. I kinda hope that painting it will make it disappear if that makes any sense. The dents and scratches are really obvious as they’re grey against the yellowed varnish and it looks rubbish.

I painted my floorboards white and it looked terrible and I ended up getting wood floors put down.

I think painted floorboards look nice in pictures but pretty shabby in real life.

@broccolibush Oh, I feel you: I am queen of “fuck it, just do it” with DIY strokes of genius. Have never adequately prepped a wall in my life, and kitchen knives were meant for wood filler/Polyfilla/opening tins of paint, etc.

When I cba I’ll post pics of my grubby white floorboards and my smart but chipping stairs for “inspiration”.

@MoonbeamSprinkles

I painted my floorboards white and it looked terrible and I ended up getting wood floors put down.

I think painted floorboards look nice in pictures but pretty shabby in real life.

Bit disappointed that two of you have said this as my DBro and a friend both have painted white floorboards throughout their houses and it looks so good. Doubles the feeling of light and space. I was going to try it on the disgusting engineered flooring in our kitchen.

Here you go. Granted we could mop the white floor more often but ¯\(ツ)/¯

I’m a big fan of the “paint floor dark, cover most of it with the biggest rug you can afford” solution. No treads on the edge bit of floor so it’ll always look good; rugs can be cleaned. Obviously not by me with my cleanliness standards, but in theory.

I like the dark boards, @stuntbubbles! The chips are actually rather charming on it.

I obviously don’t have the gaps between the boards so will have a much flatter finish. DH wants to paint the floors an off white but I am leaning hard towards a really dark flat grey. We have windows on all sides so lots of light but it’s a real change from minging yellowed wood. I think I might just paint the second bedroom and see how I feel about it - it’s the darkest room too - and just keep the door shut on it if it’s awful.

I've painted real floor boards once (white) it works well.
I'm also of the slap it on and read the instructions (at not) afterwards.

However, Engineered flooring? You'll need to key the surface/sand with a gritty sandpaper a lot to get a good surface the paint will stick too. Rugs over the high traffic areas will help the longevity a lot (and make it cosier and Warner and not as noisy)

@stuntbubbles

Here you go. Granted we could mop the white floor more often but ¯\\(ツ)/¯

I’m a big fan of the “paint floor dark, cover most of it with the biggest rug you can afford” solution. No treads on the edge bit of floor so it’ll always look good; rugs can be cleaned. Obviously not by me with my cleanliness standards, but in theory.

I love the look of that white floor. I'd be very happy with that.

@gingerhills Thank you!

Oh! I should also recommend my ultimate cheat’s trick, Dulux Super Grip Primer. You can just shove it on top of gloss, varnish, lacquer, plastic, metal, anything shiny, then paint on top. It is some kind of witchcraft and you don’t need to sand first – just clean. All the chips/fades in my floors are where I didn’t clean first. But I just slapped on the primer then the paint, didn’t strip or sand first. It’s expensive but worth it for not sanding.

I've painted loads of floors and I'm dead pleased with mine. I filled the gaps first with corrugated cardboard glued in & then polyfilla'd over the top. The best, nicest white I used was F&B floor paint. I cba to sand first and just painted it straight on. SO satisfying. I gave it 2 coats and it still looks fabulous with no scratches 4yrs on.
In another room I used a Johnson's floor paint from the local Trade decorating centre. What a massive disappointment, it yellowed super-fast and I'll have to redo it shortly. There's been zero yellowing in the F&B.
I've also painted 2 flights of stairs in F&B & they're fantastic too. Absolutely worth the money. I've never used Annie Sloane.

[quote stuntbubbles]@gingerhills Thank you!

Oh! I should also recommend my ultimate cheat’s trick, Dulux Super Grip Primer. You can just shove it on top of gloss, varnish, lacquer, plastic, metal, anything shiny, then paint on top. It is some kind of witchcraft and you don’t need to sand first – just clean. All the chips/fades in my floors are where I didn’t clean first. But I just slapped on the primer then the paint, didn’t strip or sand first. It’s expensive but worth it for not sanding.[/quote]
That is the kind of tip I love. Really don't want to sand it first.

Gosh that looks fab @PaleDaffodils - and I think is a similar finish to how mine might look as the engineered wood doesn’t have the gaps that floorboards have (obvs). I intend on filling the big dents and gouges but not worrying too much about the surface scratches - otherwise I’ll be filling for the rest of time!

According to the product blurb you can use the chalk paints I mentioned on top of finished/painted/varnished wood and everything will be fine. Reviews and various blogs I’ve been diving into seem to suggest the same.

I might have to change tack ever so slightly as @stuntbubbles primer sounds ace.

My gut instinct tells me the chalk paints will chip like hell but that may not be a bad thing for a rustic look.

Yes that’s my fear, though the chap from rust-oleum claims that they won’t (though he would say that, wouldn’t he). He did suggest a varnish if we worried about chipping or it became a problem so there’s always that.

We’re a mostly shoes off, child free, pet free flat so I expect that we’re fairly easy going on our floors (famous last words). The damage all predates me moving in when it was DH’s bachelor pad and used by him and his friends for the kind of raucous boy parties that menchildren in their late 20s/early 30s have. We’re far too old and boring to put ourselves through that now.

We hired a sander,did it all properly. Filled the gaps. Primer, specific floor paint, white,DD bedroom, took ages to dry and scraped, when you moved anything. Have done the chalk paint on furniture

The floorboards in our house were painted some kind of F&B white by the previous owner - they're all right in the bedrooms (but never get washed down as often as they ought to because... bedrooms) but the bathroom is a complete horror show: the paint's chipped and peeled and it always looks filthy. So I'm guessing microclimate plays a part?

I painted the wooden floor of my bedroom blue when I was a teenage. Looked great for a couple of years but then we moved house. and it took me AGES to sand it all by hand.

If you go for it OP I would love to see a before and after pic! Considering doing something similar with my wood flooring.

I filled the gaps first with corrugated cardboard glued in & then polyfilla'd over the top.
@PaleDaffodils - I love this tip. Definitely going to give this a go.

The beauty of corrugated cardboard is that you can squish it a bit if needed or double/triple it up too.

I love a painted floor. I have done them over and over again, including in our current house where we had grotty yellow pine against beautiful old walls. They are now a fresh blue under red Persian rugs and look lovely.

Imho the trick is to go deliberately distressed, and give them a rub back so you can see a bit of grain. Any knocks or chips then just make them even nicer.

I don't know about Annie Sloan - and I love it ordinarily. Just not sure how you would seal for high traffic and washing. I've used wood paint plus varnish and that's been fine. Proper floor paint stinks. I would use, but only if I could get someone to do it for me and move out for a couple of days!

I've sanded and painted, not sanded and painted lots of floors. Mainly floorboards and the compressed fibre board stuff. In dry and damp rooms. Mainly normal gloss or the slightly gritty floor paint.

Love it. Am really interested to hear how it goes on an engineered floor!

@tilder

I've sanded and painted, not sanded and painted lots of floors. Mainly floorboards and the compressed fibre board stuff. In dry and damp rooms. Mainly normal gloss or the slightly gritty floor paint.

Love it. Am really interested to hear how it goes on an engineered floor!

which lasted best?

Thanks for all the encouragement/advice/photos. I’m going to give it a try - what’s the worst that could happen? I’ll definitely be back with pictures.