I still can't believe I was able to makeover my hard wood floors all on my own!
It's been a lot of work and a lot of trial and error, but now that they are finished I can say that it was all so worth it. I am really pleased at how my Beige-Washed Painted Wood Floors have turned out.
What a difference, Right?
Because I have a lot of information to share, I decided it would be best to break this blog post up into 3 parts. In PART 1 I shared about the long process it took to get my floor to where they are today. Have you read Part 1 yet? It's funny to think that in the beginning I was going with the darkest color of stain available and now in the end I choose the complete opposite. Light Paint!
Today, In Part 2 I wanted to share a Step by Step of how I achieved this look.
But just to clarify, I'm hesitant to call this post a How-To because admittedly I'm no expert and If you were to ask anyone around they will most likely tell you to hire a professional.
I also do not want to take responsibility if you try this out in your own homes and do not achieve the same results.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm brave when it comes to DIY projects around our home. I just go for it. I am also not a perfectionist so these floors are not perfect. And so if you do attempt to paint your own floors then I'll just say, Good Luck! 😉
STEP 1.
Sand Sand Sand
To prep wood floors for a white-wash paint or stain, you first have to sand the floors completely down to the raw unfinished wood. The right sander with help you achieve this.
CHOOSE A SANDER: There are several different options of sanders to pick from. I'd suggest you go with the best sander available to you. If you need to, you can rent one from most any Home improvement store and they should be able to help you choose the best one for you. I just so happened to have a belt sander on hand and so that is what I used for our floors and it worked great. I wouldn't suggest going with anything smaller than a belt sander because as I shared in part one, I originally was hoping to sand my floors using a smaller hand sander, but the sander wasn't able to sand down to the raw wood as needed. In a bit I will talk about two other sanders that I used as well.
SANDPAPER: Choosing the right grid of sandpaper is equally as important as choosing which sander to use. I went with a heavy duty 36 grit sand paper for my belt and it made all of the difference. I'll also share in a bit the other grits of sandpaper I used at different stages of this project.
PROTECTION FROM DUST
Sanding wood floors is a very dusty job to say the least. These items pictured below are a Must-Have.
- Safety Mask
(I had a respirator mask on hand and found it to work wonderful at keeping dust out of my nose and mouth, but just a disposable safety mask will work too)
- Safety goggles or glasses
You are going to want to protect your eyes from the dust as well so be sure to have either goggles or glasses on.
- Hair bandanna
This bandanna/head wrap was a lifesaver at keeping dust out of my hair
-Knee Pads
(not pictured) I didn't have knee pads on hands and instead improvised by using an old chair cushion to kneel on. Whatever you use, you will definitely need something.
Step 2.
Keep Sanding
Now, With the belt sander and 36 grit sand paper I was able to sand my wood floors right down to the raw wood. However, it left my floors with a rough finish. So I had to sand over the floors again with a lighter sandpaper to get a nice smooth finished. For this step, I just used my little hand sander and 100 grit sandpaper.
Step 3.
Strip and Sand the outer edges.
My belt sander was unable to reach the outer edges of the room and so I had to come up with a way to get those edges completely sanded as well. That's where some varnish stripper came in useful. I heavily sprayed the stripper on the outer wood floors, left it on for about 24 hours and then scrapped it off with a putty knife.
I followed the instructions on the back of the stripper, which said to wear gloves and a face mask.
Also, I'm not sure if I would recommend this particular stripper to you, it worked okay, but it was a little hard to spray because the product itself is pretty thick. I'm sure that there are some other products out there that will work even better.
The stripper was only able to get the top layer off sealer off of my wood floors, so I still needed a way to get to the raw wood. So this is when I turned to my handy little mouse sander and some 60 grit sandpaper. It was teamwork here between the stripper and the mouse sander to get the outer edges sanded, It needed both items to get the job done.
Step 4
Clean up.
Like I already mentioned, sanding floors is super dusty. I was cleaning up dust for days. But right before you paint or stain your floors is the time when you really need to get all of the dust cleaned up.
You can use cheese cloth for this or I found wet paper towels to work well.
Step 5.
How-to Beige-Wash floors
Now after playing around with different paint mixed with water I came up with a beautiful Beige-Wash color that I was happy with. At first I tried a white-Wash using white paint, then I tried a Grey-Wash using Grey paint, and I ended up loving the Beige-Wash color the most.
It came out looking like a true driftwood color.
(See Part 1 for the other options I was choosing from and they reason why I chose paint over stain)
This Beige color is called Cedar Key by Benjamin Moore (although I had mine mixed with Valspar paint) in an eggshell finish.
Honestly, I just had this paint on hand and it worked great, but I'm sure you can still achieve this look with a similar beige color.
So all you need to beige-wash your floors is some paint, a bowl of water, a paper plate, a paint stir stick and a large paint brush.
All I did was stir up my can of paint with the stir stick, laid the paint coated stir stick onto the paper plate and this little amount of paint on the stick was enough to cover a fairly large area of floor.
I then dipped my paintbrush into the bowl of water, tapped the wet brush onto some paint from the stir stick and began painting my floors. You really don't need to use very much paint at all. And in fact, you don't want to use very much paint. The whole point of mixing the paint with water is to create a light enough paint that allows all of the wood grain and floor boards to show through. If you just paint your floors you would end up loosing all of the character from the wood themselves.
I'd almost say it was about a 50/50 ratio
50% water 50% Paint.
I really just played around with the mixture as I went along. If it was going on too heavy I'd add more water and if it was going on too watery, then I'd add more paint. This is something that you have to just play around with and then eventually you'll find yourself in a nice groove.
Now the paint-wash goes on a lot darker at first and looks way different when it dries. So keep that in mind. This next picture shows just how different the wet and dry paint look. The wet is in the middle and it is dry above and below.
I actually put on two coats of the beige-wash because I liked the way it looked. One coat left me with more wood tones and with two coats it covered up more of those tones.
I Let the paint dry 24 house before adding the second coat And I also did another light sanding in-between coats using my hand sander and the 100 grit paper. The paint leaves a little bit of a chalky finish and so it just made sense to sand it first to make the floors smooth before adding my second coat.
After my second coat of beige-wash was on, I left it to dry for 24 hours. Then I Once again sanded the floors down with my hand sander and 100 grit to get a smooth surface.
Step 6
Seal Floors.
The last step is to add a sealer to the floors and this truly is where the magic happens. Seriously, applying the sealer was my favorite part of the whole process. It magically brought out more warm tones and more wood grain and really just made the floors come alive.
I used a Minwax Polyurethane sealer in a semi-gloss finished.
I also did two coats of the sealer. I let it dry for 24 hours in between coats and I also once again sanded with my 100 grit sandpaper and hand sander in between coats of the sealer to keep the floors smooth.
So Much Sanding!
But So Worth it!
I am so happy with how my floors turned out that I'm planning on doing our living room and dining room floors next. .... I just need to get motivated first 😉
I'll be back to share a PART 3 next that will include lots of After Pictures of the full room.
Please let me know if you have any questions in a comment below or email them to me at thewickerhouse@yahoo.com or come find me on Facebook or Instagram
Also, if you liked today's post please share it or give it a PIN so others can see it too.
Thank you!!!
✌️Emily
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