There are instances when painting floors can be the best solution to freshen up a space and add character. It could also prove to be a hard decision to make, as flooring is one of the most expensive changes to make in a home, so painting could be a risk. But it's a choice that can make sense if the floors need repair or have been refinished so many times that doing so again is not an option.
I was inspired to write this Ideabook and look for additional rooms with painted floors on Houzz when Rene, from the blog Cottage and Vine, painted the floors in her boy's bedrooms white. This proved to be a smart choice with great results when refinishing the floors was not in the cards.
Here are several rooms in which homeowners and designers also put aside their reservations and pulled out the paint brushes.
Painting floors with a checkerboard pattern is a very popular choice. It is classic and fun at the same time. Here the colors, a beautiful combination of blue and caramel, are what make this particular checkerboard floor unique.
Painting wood floors with crisp white paint is also a popular choice. Here the result is just great. The wide white planks add to the fresh modern appeal and create a wonderful sense of movement against the ceiling beams running in an opposing direction.
A beautiful country classic. The worn black and white paint on the floor could not have more character. Painted floors seem to look best when the paint begins to wear off, showing the planks of the flooring.
I would love to see a closer photo of this room and floor. The floor design appears to be painted and if so, what a remarkable design with an outstanding result. The floor most certainly is the star of this room!
The checkerboard pattern on the floor in this kitchen is stained, but please let me include it here! It is a beautiful example of how adding a special treatment to the floor can bring character to a design. The dark color on the floor is repeated in the pendants above the island and the island itself, with deep turquoise cabinetry bringing saturated color to the space.
This room and the following room show the floors which inspired this Ideabook. The first is a blue boys room with floors that seriously needed attention prior to being painted white...
...and the second, a boys room in green. When refinishing the floors was not an option, painting proved to be a solution which brought a fresh bright style to each bedroom.
And speaking of green rooms with painted floors, this kitchen boasts an unusual color palette with deep green walls and dark blue cabinetry. The floor follows the lead of these colors and is painted a deep blue along with a bright white. Add the large white chandelier and vintage style refrigerator and this becomes a space full of unique style.
Very cool focus, and these examples are beautiful. I just had a conversation about painted ceilings, and I think that different attention to floors can equally (no--more so) change the look of a room.
I need to do something better with my horrible cement tile porch floor - I'm thinking pale gray and off-white diagonal checkerboard, instead of calamine lotion beige, as at present...
Great Examples! The floors in our house are in rough shape, and we aren't ready to really do anything with them yet. This hallway would look great with a smaller version of the swirly design. I think it would lighten up the space.
The floor in the sixth photo appears to be encaustic cement tile, which was a popular style in the Mediterranean in the late 19th-early 20th century. There were many French companies that made this tile and it made its way as far as Cuba where some of the best examples survive today. It looks like that photo is from Israel, which would make sense, since many encaustic tile floors have been preserved in the Middle East as well.
@smulder: We know it as "Cuban tile". We just purchased a home and are in the process of removing the wood floors from the bathrooms and putting in cuban tile. They are made by hand here in Florida and can be made with custom colors.
This is a fabulous post - love all the ideas. Especially the patterned ones. We're debating on painting our floors white in our coach house that recently had a fire. I'd love to hear from people who have white floors and see how they feel about them in the kitchen, or if they have a dog...Are they still thrilled with their decision or is it a headache to maintain?
Thanks for the clarification and information on the 6th photo, smulder and cocotorre. I will have to do another Ideabook on this flooring if I can find more examples, it is truly remarkable.
Back to painted floors, I once turned my oval dining room table upside down, traced around it then added another foot or so out from the drawn oval and painted the interior of the area solid green and the foot wide border with a free-form hand painted flowering vine on a white background over a worn hardwood floor. This made cleaning up after two young boys at mealtime much easier than the rugs I had put there before.
I love painted floors. Painted a checkerboard design on my kitchen floor that I had for 15 years. Just repainted it white and added a scroll like diamond design. Liked the checkerboard better, but the stencil was done in under two hours.
