Wood-Graining a Floor

I have an older home, built in 1910. I started renovating 20 years ago and haven't made a great deal of headway with it. It's a 1 1/2 story with the bedrooms and bath upstairs and living, dining room and kitchen on the main floor.

I was able to take out all the plaster and lath walls upstairs and replace that with gyprock, put in new windows and completely redo the bathroom. Only some of the baseboards are on, but the doors and door frames are all redone in mahogany.

That leaves the floors, which are fir which has been painted over the years and very shabby looking. As the paint has worn, there is bare wood, some mustard yellow paint and wine-colored paint; quite a disaster.

I definitely don't like carpeting anymore, don't want the lino look, laminate is expensive and I don't want to spend too extravagantly.

So I got the idea of doing the floor painting and thought the natural look would be the best.

So I have spent a week and, so far, 4 coats of paint. But it has turned out beautifully and I am so happy with it. I have at least 2 more coats of varathane to brush on, but it's a lovely looking floor now.

First coat is a special adherrent primer, then you put down the base coat. On top of that you do the top coat, which is a small amount of paint mixed in with the glaze. the glaze extends the open or wet time, so you can work with it. As you put that down you do the woodgraining with a rocker paint tool and then you go on to 3 or 4 coats of varathane.

I did each length of board, one at a time, and I was surprised how easy it was. I really had a lot of misgivings about what I was getting myself into, but it is so easy; the tool does the work.

I would highly recommend this faux finish to anyone wanting to refurbish a floor or any piece of furniture that's become a little shabby or if you just want a change.

Footnote: One floor had old linoleum glued down with a terrible black glue of some kind...that part of the job just about did me in! But, if nothing else, I'm stubborn and finally got it all off;  but it took three weeks just getting that cleaned up ready for the paint.  And I've painted the old register cover since this photo was taken, so it looks much better now, too.

 So altogether, I did 3 bedrooms and a short hallway in about 6 weeks. Lots of work but very inexpensive.