I must be crazy...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 6:38PM We have lived in our current house for a little over a year. There are so many things that we love about this house - the character, the details, the space, the yard, the location, etc. Our previous house was over 100 years old and was a true fixer-upper. While we loved that house, it was constant work and we were ready to move into a house that didn't require so much of our time. This house was built in the 60s and has been really well taken care of during it's lifetime. We are only the third owners, and by far, the youngest. Structurally, the house is in great shape, but the interior decoration left a lot to be desired. In most cases, it was nothing a little paint couldn't fix.
One area that was especially outdated and just plain ugly, was the kitchen. When we moved into our house, this is what the kitchen looked like:
Where should I begin? The wallpaper? The tile? The giant track lighting? I was seven months pregnant when we moved in, but don't think that stopped me from ripping down that hideous wallpaper the day after we arrived. Once we were settled, we had the cabinets and walls painted and replaced the hardware and the light fixtures. All of this was a huge improvement, but the floor was still an eyesore.
One Monday morning as my husband was getting ready to go to work I said, "I wonder what is underneath the tile in the kitchen. Maybe we could just pull up a tile or two and see what is underneath." You are probably thinking that my husband must have looked at me like I am crazy but after knowing me for 8 years, he is used to these sort of statements. So, we pulled up a piece or two in a slightly hidden location and found an ugly subfloor underneath. That is what I assumed was under there, but I just wanted to see. My husband went on to work and I put Riley down for her nap. By the time he came home that evening, I had pulled up all of the tile and we had a dirty, ugly subfloor in our kitchen.
"Don't worry," I said. "I have a plan and it won't even cost us much money." I informed him that my plan was to paint the subfloor - then he looked at me like I must be crazy. But, he promised to let me give it a try and said he would reserve judgement until he saw the finished project.
I spent the next week chiseling mortar and grout, patching holes in the floor, sanding and priming. Finally, it was time to paint. At this point, even I was starting to have doubts, but I figured I had come this far, so I might as well see it through to the end. After several coats of paint, endless touch-ups and two coats of polyurethane, we finally have our finished kitchen floor.
Riley loves it!
Some of you may be wondering why I painted the subfloor instead of installing a "real" floor. Basically, our kitchen is still a long way off from where we want it to be but we aren't ready to do a complete renovation yet. So, this floor is meant to be a temporary fix. It is much more comfortable on my feet and it is a thousand times better looking than the old tile. Once we are ready to fully renovate the kitchen, we will install a more typical floor. That being said, we both LOVE this floor so we may end up painting the floor again. What do you think? Have any of you ever painted a floor?
Reader Comments (9)
Rach! I had seen pictures of your new kitchen, but had NO idea how much of that you and Paul had done yourselves! The floor looks GREAT! I can't even tell that it's just a subfloor. And I can't believe you had time to rip up all that tile by yourself in one day! Please don't tell Lee you do such projects. He will start expecting much, much more of me.
Rachel,
Lee loves the new kitchen, too. He wants to know how hard the floor is to keep clean.
Hey Suz!
Thanks for reading my blog! We love the new floor. The gray squares don't show any dirt/hair. The white ones show a little more dirt and dog hair since Reagan has black fur. But it isn't any harder to keep clean than that tile was and I don't have to deal with grout! I used epoxy-reinforced floor paint so I technically didn't have to use polyurethane on top of it. But I thought the paint soaked up spills and it was hard to clean them if I didn't get to it right away. Now that I have coated the floor with polyurethane, it is much easier to clean and mop.
Wow!! Rach, that is so impressive!
great job!! so nice. and 7 months pregnant in the process, i am well impressed.
great blog. i love the black!
jenny
Good grief, Rachel. I am impressed that you have this blog up to date heck with doing all the stuff. Where did you get all this talent?? Not our side of the family. Love the floor.
Donna
Hello! I was researching 'painted subflooring' and came across your website. I have two dogs who have done tremendous damage to my carpets, so I was thinking about just getting rid of the carpets and painting and sealing the subflooring (as I cannot afford to put in any new type of flooring, but can't live with this nasty carpet). What kind of paint did you use? What other materials did you use? How is the texture of the floor now that it's painted and sealed? It looks fantastic; your painted floors give me hope that mine could look just as nice! Thanks!
Sorry, another question: how do you clean it?
HI Nova,
I just used floor paint on my subfloors but it required a lot of sanding and wood filler before painting began. Then I sealed the floor with several coats of polyurethane. I just used regular floor cleaner on it once it had been sealed. It was a great temporary fix but subflooring is really too soft to last for a long period of time. It eventually started showing too much wear and tear so I have since covered it up with tile. Good luck with your floors!
Rachel