How do I Paint Flooring? | Decorating Centre Online

How do I paint my wooden flooring?

If you’ve ever torn up your old carpets, expecting a beautifully crisp and gorgeous wooden floor to be revealed from its fabric wrapping, you will definitely know how wrong that assumption is!

Most of the time, the wooden floor underneath your carpet is old, covered in dirt and paint splatters and just generally looks like a well-worn and just a mess!

However, you don’t have to re-carpet your flooring straight away, you can actually paint it and make it look fabulously new and shiny too!

Just a simple lick of paint will give your floors a fresh new look and brighten up your entire room in a wonderfully simplistic and creative way!

So, check out our step-by-step blog post below to find the perfect method for painting your wooden floor! Below you will also learn how to prepare the wooden floor for your painting job, including sealing and filling wooden flooring too! 

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What would I need to paint my wooden floors?

The best materials to use in order to paint your floors and make them durable, strong and withstanding many knocks, bumps and high traffic, you should definitely use a floor-specific paint for your wooden floors.

Floor paints are also perfect for resisting any staining, spillages and any other everyday accidents which can happen all the time.

This means that, depending on the specific floor paint which you choose, there may be a slight difference to the step-by-step guide on whether you will need to prime, sand or prepare your flooring for painting in any other brand-specific ways.

However, there are some universal steps which you must undertake in order to prepare and then paint your flooring which will be listed below! 

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What you will need:

· Wood flooring paint

· Wood primer

· Sandpaper

· Sponge/cleaning supplies

· Paint brush

· Paint roller

· Decorator’s Masking Tape 

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Step 1: Fix any parts of your flooring which may hinder the final finish of your flooring paint

Depending on the individual condition of your flooring underneath your carpet, you may have to fix some issues before you start preparing to paint your flooring!

You should also prepare to paint your wood flooring by filling in any large cracks, knot holes, scratches, or anything else with wood filler in order to create a solid base for you to paint over.

If there are any knots in the wood of the floor, you must firstly use a wood primer in order to prevent the wood from breaking or barrelling. However, you must definitely make sure that the primer you are using is suitable for wood, as well as durable enough to use on flooring too!

If there are any rough, or even bevelled areas in your wood flooring as well as previously painted areas, you must firstly sand it down in order to create a base for your primer and/or paint to adhere to, without showing up any bumps, blobs or blebs in your flooring which will potentially ruin the final look of your painted wooden floor. 

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Step 2: Prepare the room for painting!

The first thing which you must do before you start painting your room is to move any furniture which you can out of the room. You can’t simply push it all to one side of the room (unless you plan to only paint half of the floor!) because leaving edges dry can impact the final look of the paint and give a visible line through the flooring.

If there is any edging or even beading along the edges of the flooring, try to remove this as much as you can as it will make painting your flooring much much easier in the long run! You may have to replace it with new edging or beading, however you may even be able to sand it and repaint it and tack it back down once you have fully finished painting the floor. 

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Step 3: Sand down your flooring, no matter its previous state

If there is any old paint coating the surface of the wooden flooring, or even if the surface of the wooden flooring is a little bit rough, you will need to sand down the wooden flooring.

Although this seems like a big task to complete, it is definitely a necessary step to complete before you start priming and painting your stairs. You can either do this step by hand (however, this will be a very long and laborious process) you may want to hire or buy a disk sander in order to make the job quicker, and less laborious too!

Ensure that you leave a smooth and totally bump/ debris-free staircase as this can affect the final finish of your paint and make it look either perfect and smooth, or make it look more gritty and bobbled!

Using an 80 grit sandpaper would work perfectly, however if you require a softer grit, you can use a variety in order to achieve the correct smoothness which you require!

However, it might be easier to hand sand the edges of the flooring in order to fully sand all of the edges of the flooring, and get every single detail of the flooring. 

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Step 4: Clean off any sanding debris/ dust left on the wooden flooring from the previous step

This step is again crucial for the finish of the paint. If you’re after a smooth and clean finish, you will have to clean off any sanding debris which has occurred as a result of sanding down your wooden flooring.

You can use a simple detergent diluted with water and a clean sponge and clean down the wooden flooring. However, you must ensure that you clean down the stairs with clean water afterwards in order to remove any soapy residue which will have occurred from the soapy water. 

You can also use our Zinsser's degreaser & cleaner which is the perfect spray for this job, just ensure that you rinse the floorboards down before painting them!

After this, you must definitely make sure that you leave the wood to fully dry before painting over it- this can take anywhere between 24-48 hours. However, it can help keep your paint from chipping off your wooden flooring, as well as bobbling or bursting too. 

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Step 5: Prime the wooden flooring before painting (if your chosen paint requires it!)

In order for your paint to your wooden flooring and for it to be as durable and string as it needs to be, you can use a suitable primer for your staircase in order for the paint to fully adhere to the wooden flooring surface.

However, some paints do not require a primer before or after painting, so you must always make sure that you are checking the manufacturer's instructions beforehand!

Or you can email, call or DM us and we can help you out with that! 

One primer which you can use is our Bulls eye 123 primer which is a water-based primer which is also tintable too! This means that this primer can be colour matched which will reduce the coats of the top coat for you!

If you are priming your wooden flooring before painting, ensure that you cover every single piece of the wooden flooring with your primer, and then allow the primer to dry for the appropriate time (again, check the manufacturer's instructions or DM us) so that your paint will adhere to the primer correctly.

Once your primer is fully dry, make sure that you use a fine sandpaper and sand it down very lightly. Was off and sanding residue left over afterwards before you start with the next step. 

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Step 6: Paint your wooden flooring! 

Now, you can finally move onto the best part of painting your wooden flooring - actually painting it! 

If you are using the bulls eye 123 primer, you should use our eggshell finish colour match paint (not the acrylic eggshell) on top.

However, you can also use either our chalky finish floor paint or our Blackfriar's Colour Match Floor Paint which is a very durable floor paint designed for both interior and exterior use as well as able to be colour matched to RAL colours as well as British Standard colours too!

The Chalky finish floor paint and the Blackfriar's colour match floor paint do not need a primer layer underneath!

You must ensure that you’re working with plenty of ventilation in your room- open the windows and open the doors as you are painting quite a large space which, depending on the paint which you choose, may smell quite strongly.

You must firstly cut-in your flooring! Use decorator’s masking tape for the edges of the skirting boards and, using an angled paint brush, paint the edges of the flooring being careful not to paint over the skirting boards.

After you have done this, do not wait for it to dry, rather use the tool of your choice- whether that is a paint brush, or a roller, or anything else- you should paint in the large area of the floor.

Make sure that you start at the furthest corner area from the floor paint in order to move across the room and then move backwards into the doorway. This will ensure that you will be able to paint the floor and not be trapped in an island of no paint in the middle of the room!

You should definitely paint smaller areas at a time in order to prevent your wooden flooring from getting dry edges which will be able to show in your final paint finish.

Leave your paint to dry for the appropriate time as stated on the back of the tin and then re-paint your wooden flooring with a second coat. 

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Step 7: Leave to dry for the appropriate time!

Make sure that you leave your final coat of paint to dry for at least 24 hours before treading all over it, this will ensure that you will have a strong and durable paint at the end of the day!

If you have any more questions or issues, just DM us on either Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for some individual consultation advice. 

OR Check out our OTHER Blog Posts for more information as well as handy Tips & Tricks!