Floors

Since uncovering this "lovely" sub-floor in the upstairs bathroom, I've become obsessed with plotting what direction to take to refinish this bathroom floor.

I have several ideas swirling around in my head. 

I'm not afraid of "floor work"...At one point a few years back it seemed like all I was doing was "floor work."  This was one of the big floor projects I worked on a couple of years ago.

When we pulled the carpet up in this room, there a really ugly (and damaged)  floor underneath. Once the floor was cleaned of all staples and extra nails, we spent a lot of time bleaching out the old "animal" stains. We were finally able to sand the floors and  lay the grid lines. My daughter and I started with the darker of the two stains (Jacobean) and rolled it on first.  Once the dark stain was dry we rolled on the lighter stain (Pecan) over the whole floor.

The floor was then sealed with polyurethane.

This is truly one of my favorite floors.  Too bad furniture had to be moved in! HA!

My husband and son-in-law laid this floor.  When we pulled the carpet up in this room there was an old porch hiding underneath, but it was also covered with plywood.  So the decision was made to lay a new pine floor to match the flooring in the rest of the house.

On this floor I only masked off the outer perimeter, then stained it all Jacobean to match the color of the other hardwoods in the home.

Simple, but dramatic.

My next floor I worked on was again a total re-do.  After the carpet was removed, and once again millions of staples were pulled (the previous homeowners had stapled down the carpet padding!).  We rented a large belt sander from Home Depot and went to work.

The old floor came out beautifully once it was fully sanded and cleaned up.  (Notice ALL the dust along the edges of the walls!)  Sanding is messy work, but very rewarding!

The next step in here was applying the dark stain.

My son-in-law helped me wipe on the stain.  We eached worked from the sides to the middle and were able to adjust our color and intensity to match each other's strokes.  Having help makes the job go so much quicker.

We ran out of stain and had to make a Home Depot run, but all ended well as we worked out way out the door and into the hallway.

Most floor work is a lot of elbow grease but is very satisfying work.

Once the stain was completely dry, I used an over sized stencil in each corner as a decorative accent.

The design is painted on top of the stain, before the polyurethane is applied.

Again, in this small bath, the carpet was removed and the floor was sanded.  We had to use a palm sander in here because of how tight the space is!  I used the same stencil in here that I used in the bedroom...but I masked off some areas (so not to paint them) and turned it upside down to create another look.

The last floor project I worked on was again in a small bathroom that also had carpet.  When we pulled the carpet back to take a peek at the floor we saw what we thought to be a "nice pine floor" 

However, after pulling all the carpet out, there was a big square of plywood in front of the shower.

It was VERY OBVIOUS!!

Well...Plan B better always be an option! So instead of refinishing the floor, I ended up painting the floor all white.  I also chose to hand painted a design in front of the sink instead of using a stencil.

 I also decided that rather than hidingthe fact there was a large piece of plywood right in the middle of the floor, I would play it up by making it look like a small bathmat in front of the shower.

I hand painted another design on the plywood and added the word "shower"...

I thought it turned out pretty cute!

Of course, looking back at these floors I want to find some "new" floor ideas.   I have found there were many others in blog land that had already thought about and/or completed the painting of a plywood floor.  Many bloggers gave pointers, step by step instructions, and some even listed the pitfalls of painted plywood.

But...the more I looked the more I thought that maybe I should pull out ALL the carpet upstairs. 

(My husband is NOT amused!)  Oh well...he'll go to work one day, and....................

Here are just a few of the ideas I came across that I think are over the top!

This image came from Design *Sponge.  I love the over sized design. (That would have to be for the whole upstairs area!)

I'm not a yellow girl, but this is so pretty.  This came from

Kelly Peterson at Paisley Wallpaper.

She goes into quite a bit of detail from prepping the floors to creating your own stencil. She has a lot of renovation work going on and I love her photo of the day.  Be sure and check out her blog.

This distressed floor is also painted a golden yellow color, but I love the soft worn look of the paint and floral design.

This image is from About.Com.

I found this wonderful lacy floor at Design *Sponge also,.

I would paint all my floors if they would look like this!

I think you'll also love Ashley Ann's DIY {stencil painted subfloor}.

 She gives a great tutorial from start to finish about painting a subfloor.

Ashley also created a pretty stencil she used on her floor.  Be sure and check out her blog.

I have much to think about regarding my very small floor...however, I still think ALL the carpet may have to come up (and very soon!)

Till tomorrow...
debi