Painting Floorboards – Painted Floorboards With a Twist

Simple Decorative Painting  – Color Floorboards

Decorative painting takes a whole new meaning when you apply simple paint color to floorboards. Nothing looks more serene than traditional Scandinavian painted floorboards of white floorboards, scrubbed, silvery pale with a matte finish.

Source: Jacob Termansen Photography – blue floorboards

Using floor paint and varnish, painting floorboards gives you a Rockstar look in a matter of hours. If you’re new to painting floorboards, don’t worry, it’s simple and the kind of decorative painting I love.

Decorated Life is all about mixing it up. Contrast is your friend. Combine retro with classic, antique with modern. Painted floorboards create both contrast and interest. A  double whammy.

Source: Branbourne Farm

A decorative painting look I love is painted Scandinavian floorboards. You can always add stencils or  use floor paint  to create stripes or checkers  with this painted floor treatment as your base. People often use grey paint, but I like white floorboards, so replace grey paint with white paint if you want to. You want a matte finish so use a matte varnish at the end.

The Scandinavian Floorboard Look

The Scandinavian Floorboard look is fast and gives a really cool greyish tone to floorboards, which is great with most furniture and home decorating. The matte finish is perfect for surfaces that are less than perfect. Painting floorboards through out an entire house creates a calm unified look but it’s a big job and done best one room at a time. You can use grey, but I like white floorboards too, so the choice is really up to you.

This decorative painting treatment is durable and can be warmed  using  rugs. For areas with  heavy traffic, add floor paint to create dark checks over your finish.

Preparation

Clear the room of furniture, including curtains, and remove wax, varnish or paints from your floorboards. Hire a sanding machine . It’s fast and not too expensive. Larger sanders have an automatic dust extractor but  make sure your model goes up to the skirting otherwise you’ll be on bended knee with a hand sander or paint stripper to finish the job. It doesn’t have to be perfect – that is why a matte finish  is such a good choice.

Place masking tape across the bottom of your doors to keep dust contained.

Materials

Any matte floor paint in a pale grey or greeny-grey shade can be thinned with water to make a driftwood color. Choose white paint if you want white floorboards. You’ll need a squeegee mop, or roller to add the thinned floor paint color over your floorboards and a bunched up rag to even out the color. Cover  painted floorboards with a plastic sheet or dust sheets when almost dry to avoid marking them.

To varnish painted floorboards use a coat of eggshell varnish first, for toughness, followed by a coat of extra pale dead flat varnish which dries totally matte. Or use an acrylic floor varnish which dries in two hours and is odorless. Hmm… which one will you choose?

Source: Things That Inspire

Application

Tip some paint into a paint trough, bowl or bucket, then add water. Start with a 50/50 mix. Stir, then paint a corner of the room to check the color. Wipe with rags until the wood grain shows but shows a hint of grey or white.  Experiment adding more or less water before you start painting floorboards.

The squeegee mop is great for getting the wash over the floorboards quickly, but rags even out the color.

When your grey or white floorboards are thoroughly dry, apply two coats of varnish. You can thin eggshell varnish which dries to a mild sheen. Leave  it harden for a few days, then apply a coat of matte varnish for a matte finish. Or use acrylic varnish is faster to apply and dry and often gives a similar finish.

Source: furnish.co.uk

These painted floorboard looks go well with white or muted walls.

Read White Walls – Morphing Pale Rooms Into Interesting Spaces or Paint Floors – Coolest Ways for Painting Floorboards for more ideas on decorative painting floorboards or find more painted floorboard ideas at my board at Pinterest.

Painting floorboards is so satisfying because it’s inexpensive, fast and totally rocks!

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