How To Paint Wooden Floors | A DIY Guide
In the weeks before we finally moved in we'd been working on our new home and I thought now would be the perfect time for an update on progress in the kids room with a guide to help you paint wooden floors.Having stripped away the thick layers of painted wallpaper (see how it looked in the before tour) and discovered the good and the not-so-perfect crumbling walls beneath, we called in an excellent plasterer who got the job done in a couple of hours. The blue carpet came up without a fight (or any underlay!) to reveal the floor which aside from a small amount of carpet glue and a few layers of dirt on top, were in great condition. As it's a really bright room, we wanted to go with a white floor, picking out a couple of shades from Farrow & Ball and settling on Wimborne White which has warm tone to it.They say the best way to learn is on the job...we began the process virtually clueless but now with experience under our belts I think we have a definitive guide here. Let's get to it...
FOR SANDING AND PREPARATION• Commercial floor sander-we hired ours for around £70 a week from a local company.• A mix of grade sanding belts for the sander ranging from 40 to 120 grit - you can purchase these when you hire the sander.• Palm sander for the edges of the room. The Bosch PSM 200 AES has two different configurations for sanding at angles with a built in dust box.• A punch tool (these allow you to drive the floor nails in without damaging the wood).• Drill - the Stanley Fatmax cordless is pretty nifty with two batteries.• White spirit.Before you go anywhere near a sander, check that all nails and screws are well secured into the floor, otherwise you'll go through all your sanding belts in no time when they tear them. If your floor has the original nails, use a punch tool and hammer them in to just below the surface of the wood, otherwise you can secure any wobbly boards with screws.On an older floor you'll find that boards have often been cut and removed at some point to make way for electrical and plumbing work. These will need to be secured. Lift the loose boards first to make 100% sure of what's underneath before you start drilling or screwing - you don't want to hit a pipe or wire.Drill pilot holes and use a countersink bit (fairly generously) before screwing to ensure screws sit below the surface of the floor. Then you can simply fill over the top and you'll never see them. Obviously leave exposed any that you may need to unscrew again in the near future - these can always be filled and touched up at a later date.Vacuum any loose dirt from the surface and grooves between and scrape the join between the skirting and floor if you have one to avoid painting in bits of dirt. Give the floor a wash to remove any more surface dirt before you sand.TIP: Is there any carpet glue left? You can use white spirit and a scraper to remove the worst of the residue, then the rest should come off with the sander.You can now begin the fun part-the sanding!
It doesn't matter which way round you approach it - we did the main part of the floor first and the edges last, but you need to make sure you remove the layers until the wood is looking brighter. Start with a heaver grade such as a 40 grit first to remove the ground in dirt, then finish with a finer grade for a smooth finish. Make sure you're happy with the feel of it under foot as once you've painted there's no going back.
TO PREP FOR PAINTING
• Wood knotting solution.• Wood filler. You can make your own from the sawdust mixed with Bona Mix & Fill or use an all purpose filler.Vacuum and wash the floor again to remove any residual dust and dirt and leave it to completely dry. You might need to repeat this stage a couple of times so as not to paint the dust into the floor. Not nice. It's always advised when painting any wood to ensure that you treat all the knots with a coat of knotting solution to stop them showing through the paint afterwards. In some cases, the knots might be sappy and I'm told that if you treat them with a heat gun you can draw the sap out and scrape it off before you knot them. Just be really careful.Fill any large gaps in the boards with the filler, allow to fully dry and then sand smooth by hand.
READY TO PAINT• Undercoat and primer - try Farrow & Ball's light and pale undertones for white floors.• Good quality floor paint - we used Wimborne White by Farrow & Ball.• Good quality paint brushes. Trust me, you don't want to be picking loose hairs out of the paint.
Now you can get on with the painting. Give the floor another vacuum to remove any last bits of dust including underneath the skirting boards then apply a layer of undercoat and primer. Go around the edges of the room first with a small brush, then fill in with a larger one, making sure to paint yourself out of the room. Don't maroon yourself! Once the undercoat is dry, follow the instructions of your paint of choice for the topcoat. This floor required two coats of the top coat and it has a slight satin finish for heavy duty wear.TIP: You might not like the look of the wood showing between each board - I didn't, so I was quite liberal in working the paint in between the joins.If you've time to, leave the floor to cure for a few days. We left ours for approx. 10 before putting any furniture onto it and I think it made a difference to the finish.
And here's the finished floor. Pretty sweet, right? It's worth remembering that painted floors will always chip eventually, and that's part of the charm, but for now, the kids are enjoying playing on it!Next step? Prepping the ceiling, walls and woodwork. More on that and the colour we've chosen soon...Got plans to paint your floors? Has this been useful? You can follow our journey with #TheChathamHouse on Instagram and join the conversation.Photography © Tiffany Grant-Riley
