Painted Floors (First Attempt): Before & After

This weekend was a big one for us!  We finally felt like enough progress had been made in the house that we could rent a Uhaul and enlist a few friends to help us get SOME of our things out of storage.  One of our top priorities, as you can imagine, was ensuring that one of our queen mattresses made it home in this first trip, and I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been to sleep on a real bed after all of this time on the floor!  True luxury.

As I have mentioned before, we have been working hard lately on getting our master bedroom and bathroom ready to move into, and one major step in that process was painting, which is much easier before everything is in there than after.  We finished the walls, cleaned out all of the supplies that had accumulated in the room, and turned to the floors.

Here is the before photo of the room from when we looked at the house.  Notice the lovely textured ceiling and carpeted floor.

To prepare the floor for the primer and paint, we vacuumed first and then carefully combed the floor for any stray carpet staples or nails sticking up from the boards.  Then we used a long handled scraper (the leverage makes the work easier than a hand held version, but you could use either one) to pop up any loose paint from the old rust-colored paint job there before.  Another round of vacuuming and then a good mopping to remove any grease or extra dirt meant that we were ready to paint.

Using a roller for medium to rough surfaces (this floor is not exactly smooth...), we rolled out the primer layer around the perimeter of the room.  Because these floors are pine, which is a soft wood, we knew it would be important to use area rugs in every room to reduce dents and holes, so we didn't bother painting the entire floor.  A little money saving secret, since once the rug is down no one will ever know!

We allowed the primer to dry the recommended time and then made another round with porch and floor paint, which requires more time to dry and harden than regular paint.  It will need a second coat eventually, too, but since one coat looks pretty good, the second will have to wait for now.

Last night was our first night in our new room!  Clearly there is SO much still to be done in here, but we love it already.  One big thing that will finish the look of the painted floors is installing quarter round molding along the baseboards, which will hide imperfections and make the transition between the floors and the walls smoother.  But for now we're happy to be here.

xo

Liza