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Painted Floors

I have to thank "The Flooring Lady", Kit Cassingham, for this great article on updating floors a frugal way. Feel free to share your frugal flooring ideas with me, like these area rug tips! And for more great frugal decorating tips, get my free ezine.

While putting in new floors might seem to be the "right" way to go, a more frugal and environmentally friendly way to go is to paint your floors. Painting floors is ultimately a time saver, and causes much less mess than replacing floors does. They look great and can be long-lasting.

Painted floors are a great way to simplify your home decorating. With only a few materials and an imagination, you're ready to go. Painting your old, tired flooring can be a great solution for freshening the look of any room. Here are some quick pros of why you should look into painted floors:
* Most surfaces can benefit from painting
* No special tools are needed
* Low-maintenance?

And here are the very few cons:
* Takes a few days to dry
* A fair amount of work to start

Oil paints are especially good when looking into painted floors. Oil paints seem to harden readily, as well as adhere to many surfaces, opposed to water-based paints. Your floor can be wood, concrete, vinyl, or laminate and still be paint-able. The priming part just might be a little different. The down-side to using oil paints are the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that pollute your home's air, and contribute to the "sick home" syndrome. Water-based paints tend to be much more environmentally friendly.

Start with a clean, dry surface. If you're trying to paint the concrete floor in your basement, this may not work out well, especially if it's damp. Most basements have chemicals mixed into the masonry to prevent floor dampness, so you should be fin, but do check first. You may need to apply a masonry primer to the concrete floor (if the paint you selected requires it). If you have a wood floor, a primer is strongly recommended in order to hide the grain pattern.

If there are any imperfections in the floor surface, fill those with non-porous filler and let it dry and harden before applying the paint. Once it's dry, you can paint away. Painted floor designs can be created with the help of plastic stencils, masking tape, or free-hand. Let your imagination run wild!

Here's the hard part -- painted hardwood, concrete and plywood floors need to be left alone for two to three days after the painting is finished. In high-traffic areas this can be difficult to do, so plan accordingly. When the paint is thoroughly dry, coat the pain with non-yellowing urethane, or water-based urethane, and let that dry as long as the manufacturer recommends.

The only maintenance you have to do now is to apply another coat of the urethane every couple of years (as well as clean the surface as you would any other flooring). The floor should stay shiny, even with heavy traffic.

Decorative painted floors really make a statement. You can recreate a 50s diner with a black and white checked pattern. I saw a game room painted like a chess or checkers board, and it looked great! You can create the look of tiles and wooden flooring as well. It's hard to tell the difference if the paint job is well done. Perhaps you'd like a marble floor? Paint can give you just the kind of marble you want! Have you ever seen a "rug" painted on the floor? I have, and it's a fantastic decorative look. You can even create raceways in your game room.

Though these pointers have been made for home decorating, there's nothing to keep a business from using the same techniques. You can paint decorative patterns or helpful "walkways" as a direction-giver for your clients/customers.

Painted floors are the new-again rage for the environmentally concerned, and in modern flooring and design. Because painted floors are so durable, they're a great way to improve a room, without cutting and measuring, or without ripping up old materials and placing new ones. Have fun creating your personal look with a painted floor.

P.S. In true frugal style, this website design cost $5.00. If you'd like to get a reasonably-priced site design of your own, visit here.

P.S.S. Did you like this idea? Some of you have asked how you could thank me for easy designs like this. Feel free to contribute to my raw materials