DIY PAINTED FLOORS || BONUS ROUND
I am pulling out all the stops on this One Room Challenge and cashing in my arcade tickets for Painted Tile Floors! That's right people... I painted the heinous tile floor that graces every home in Florida. You know the type, off white 12x12 builder grade tile with that "cardboard box" shade of brown grout. Zero character. Zero fun. Zero cool surf shack vibes. Armed with a paint brush and a few buckets of paint, I added a splash of fun to this powder room makeover.
First things first, we pried the quarter round from the baseboards all the way around the room to expose all of the tiles. We used a combination of flat head screw driver, hammer and chisel with an angled tip. I needed to get this floor CLEAN and get to all of the hard to reach spots so I took this opportunity to scrub every inch of the room. It's not the most fun part of the project but if you do it right the remainder of the projects go so much smoother. Once the room was sparkling clean I was ready to crack open a can of primer and get to work.
I used my favorite Zinsser Primer to make it extra tacky and to seal that grout. Just seeing that crisp white made my heart happy. I almost changed my mind and left it solid white. Almost....
Using my angle tipped brush I cut in around the entire room and into all of the grout grooves. I used Rustoleum Chalk Paint in Charcoal for this step because it sticks to almost any surface, it dries super fast AND it has a great matte almost concrete finish. I wanted to achieve the look of hand made or hand painted concrete tile without the price tag.
Once all of the grout lines were painted in I busted out my foam roller and covered the entire floor with a *THIN* coat of the grey paint. This paint dries crazy fast so fight the urge to lay a thick first coat down. The trick is to build it in layers so its got some grit to stick.
After two coats of grey were rolled on this girl went to bed to let it cure over night. I wanted to make sure it was extra dry before applying the tape pattern the next day. I literally had nightmares about all the grey peeling up after I got the pattern laid down. We are talking cold sweats and panicked breathing.
I used an old gift card to press the edges of my tape down extra tight and ran a thin layer of the grey paint along any trouble spots or seams to seal the edges down. This is how I was able to achieve crisp lines with my next layer of white paint with no bleed through!
Again with the zen master patience.... waiting for these edges to dry. Sigh.....
I did every other row and then allowed them dry. It made the taping job so much easier so there wasn't any overlap.
Now I let this cure overnight so that the tape down on the opposite rows didn't peel up all that hard work!
Every triangle got 2 thin coats of white chalk paint and touch ups in tiny spots where needed. The beauty of chalk paint is that it dries in about 20 minutes.... good for the impatient! I made sure I wore soft socks the entire time to take extra care to not scuff the paint job. Hovering over all this hard work like spider man had my abs, back and knees screaming by the end of the day!
Man... these crisp lines are giving me all the feels. This bathroom is coming together and I am blown away, YET AGAIN, at the power of paint.
The final step and the most annoying step was rolling the Polyurethane on. I had to make sure every speck of dust and dog hair was removed from the room with out damaging the paint. I may or may not have lint rolled the floor guys....
For the price tag I'd say this project was well worth the patience! New floors for $0 because I had all items in my garage.
Supplies:
High Grip Primer $30
1 Qt Charcoal Chalk Paint $16
1 Qt White Chalk Paint $16
1 Qt Crystal Clear Polyurethane $10
Foam Roller
Foam Brushes
Left over gift card (for pressing edges of tape)
I hope this inspires you to tackle the ugly tile that's been driving you nuts!!