[DIY] Painting A Patterned Floor

Jumping over to a new room, we’re kick-starting the conservatory renovation back up! You might remember last year we started doing some work in this room before the kitchen reno really took off – well a whole year later and one kitchen reno out of the way, we’re back to it! And this time, we’re tackling the floor.

So in-case you’re a new reader, here’s a little look into how the room looked originally, when we first moved in. {VERY WHITE}

Since that photo, we’ve replaced the old leaky plastic roof with a nice thick modern insulating equivalent and we’ve also insulated the external brick wall and plastered it. Other than that, we’ve altered some pipework in here and that’s really about it. We’re on a mega budget right now with renovating, so some of the plans I talked about in this post are going to have to wait. BUT, if we’re ever going to make this house truly enjoyable to live in, we’re going to have to do a bit of a mend and make do in some areas. And the conservatory is the perfect place to start.

So with that in mind, instead of buying nice new flooring for this room we’re going to do something a whole lot cheaper – we’re going to paint it. Say whaaat?

Not in a flat black garage kinda fashion – nope, in a glorious tile-worthy pattern. We already have some floor paint leftover from a previous project and after a few sketches and ideas for designs, I was 110% convinced on the idea. It’s quick, fairly easy, quirky and I think would really really suit this little unique room.

First things first, here’s a quick look at the current floor we’ve had going on in this room. It’s a kind of sheet vinyl/lino material (I never know the difference between those two!) and it’s been there since we moved in and since the old roof leaked – so it’s certainly seen better days.

Underneath the lino wasn’t too much better either, the whole thing smelt a bit dank and I also uncovered some “unique” little features. An old gutter hole and an access panel into the floor where the kitchen plumbing enters (although I suspected this one would be here).

So rolling with the little quirks, I gave the floor a good scrub with warm soapy water and then went over with our mega-suction Karcher renovation hoover. (I’ve done a review on the vacuum which you can read here – but I 100% recommend if you’re renovating!) This floor is obviously concrete, but luckily it’s been pretty well laid – and by that I mean, it’s level and flat with no horrible lumpy patches, which you quite often find with concrete floors. Having it flat and level really helps to make it a suitable base for painting!

Which Paint?

For this project, the paint I’m using is Rustoleum’s Chalky Finish Floor Paint. It sadly only comes in three colours (please make more!!) but I love the finish of them – Matt but natural. They can be used on both concrete and wooden floors, although I’ve only ever used it on concrete personally (you can see how I used it before here).

The colours I’m using are Anthracite and Winter Grey. One is a dark modern grey, the other appears more ‘white’ in colour and only really looks grey when it’s actually used against white.

Things You Will Need:

• Pencil and Sharpener
• Tape Measure
• Long Ruler (I’m using a spirit level)
• Smaller Ruler
• Floor Paint in 2 Colours
• Large Paint Brush
• Very Small Tipped Paint Brush

For a good durable finish on the floor, you really need to make sure the area is completely clean and free of debris. This floor is quite ‘gravelly’ in a way – by that I mean, there’s lots of little gravel-type flecks which have dislodged from the floor. These would eventually scuff-up from the paint when walked over if they’re not removed prior to painting. So for a really good finish and one that will hopefully last – it’s super important the floor is completely clean and clear. Again, this is why I love the Karcher vac and it’s super suction! I did also scrub it by hand prior to this as well, which helped to dislodge any further gravelly flecks that might end up moving later.

Step 2 – Base Coat

To make my life easier when it comes to doing the pattern, I decided to give the whole floor one flat coat of paint in the darker colour, Anthracite. This means I can just go back over the with the lighter colour to complete the pattern. Painting a floor does use a lot more paint than you think it will, but one coat gave a really really good coverage, so I didn’t even have to go over with a second. I just used a large paint brush to apply and made sure to really work it into the floor, not applying too much. You could probably use a roller as well, but it may not get into all the crevices, if you have any.

You also need to make sure you let the floor completely dry before you start painting – I was a little impatient with one corner that was taking ‘too long’ to dry – and the paint didn’t take too well in that spot. By that I mean, it flaked a little. I went over the next day and it was fine – so make sure you’re not impatient like me 😉

I’d googled painted pattered floors for inspiration and I also drew up some mock-ideas before coming up with an end design. I wanted something geometric, but easy. Too complicated and marking it out on the floor could end in one big fail. I also needed something that would be easy to repeat and I could create consistently across the room. There’s lots of inspiration online for checkerboard floors, but I wanted to do something a little more quirky than that – So this was my mock-up sketch I decided to go with, which you may have seen over on my Instagram Stories.

To make the floor look as “tile-like” as possible, I decided to grid up the floor into 33x33cm squares as this is a pretty standard size for most square tiles. I marked it out using just a tape measure, long spirit level (to be used a ruler) and a pencil – which by the way will need sharpening approximately every 2 minutes. I had intended to use a laser level as a guide to grid up the floor, but this room was far too bright for the laser to show up on the floor. So I just did it the old fashioned way with a good old tape measure. This room is pretty square so I was able to use the walls as starting point, with the lines running parallel against both walls.

Things to note – shuffling your bum across the pencil lines will kinda rub them out, so shuffle lightly 😉 You’ll also need a smaller ruler (as opposed to the long spirit level) to get right into the corners of the room. This whole process didn’t take too long, but it’s definitely worth taking your time over to get it right.

Step 5 – Painting the Pattern

Once it had all been drawn out, I could then begin going on with the second colour, Winter Grey. Initially I thought I could masking tape the edges to make painting the triangles easier, but due to  the contours and crevices in the floor, the masking tape didn’t have 100% contact to the floor, which meant the paint bled through. So unless you have a perfectly smooth floor, I wouldn’t recommend masking. Instead I decided to freehand it. I bought some new purchased paint brushes, including some super small tipped ones (actually meant for art painting) so I could get right into the corners and basically just took my time. I quite enjoy painting anyway and I’m reasonably good at it, so this wasn’t too much of a chore. I also think free handing it will actually help it to look a little more natural – A bit like hand-finished tiles I suppose. Imperfect but perfect.

It did take a while, I’ll admit – and you do need quite a steady hand. I broke it up into short spans over several days so that it didn’t get too tedious, or my steady hand would start to get lazy. I also had to do two coats to cover over the darker grey properly, so overall it did take a few hours to achieve.  I think I was averaging around 2-3minutes per each triangle to give you some idea to how long it took. However, I think SO worth it! I love the freehand look – it’s obviously not 100% perfect along every line, but I think this actually adds charm and shows the floor for what it is – a little piece of hand drawn art!

And if you’re wondering about I dealt with the weird gutter hole and access panel – those are now discreetly hidden as part of the pattern! I should also mention after the lighter paint, I did go back over with the darker colour to touch up any areas that didn’t quite make the cut (i.e. areas my hand slipped – oops!).

And just like that – we now have one beautifully patterned almost tile-looking floor. Obviously painting a concrete floor isn’t the most practical in high traffic areas, but this is a conservatory so I think it really works well here. Yes, it can be a little cold underfoot when this room is cold, but generally this room will be used for sitting down and chilling out in – not so much standing around, like you might in a kitchen. You could of course use this idea on wooden floorboards as well and the paint I’ve used would also be suitable for them too!

I love the floor and lighting combo and I actually get a lot of questions about these festoons – which are the Warm White Festoons from Lights4Fun (found here). I bought them AGES ago for this room, but they’ve pretty much been sat around waiting for less dusty-times to be used 😉 I will say, I don’t recommend using the little plastic hooks on the lights – they actually pop in and out of the light, so when it’s warm in this room the plastic expands and the lights pop off, meaning they fall to the floor! Sadly this did lead the breakage of one bulb but the customer service at Lights4Fun was so fab that they offered a replacement and since then I’ve used the wire to secure the lights rather than the hooks. I still love them though, I think they work really well in here and they’re also connectable, so you can add many sets together!

So that’s all the updates on the conservatory for now. I’ve done a little video montage of the DIY which you can watch below if you’d like. I quite enjoyed this DIY and for the price it cost (all shown below!) I think it’s definitely been worth it. The next job for this room will be adding some seating – so watch this space for that 😉

I’d love to know what you think to the floor – have you/would you paint a patterned floor in your home?

Costs

(rounded to the nearest pound)

New Tools Purchased:
Tiny Paint Brushes £2

Materials Used:
Paint £30

Total: £32