Hi Slahgirl,

The upstairs of our home was originally the attic, so it was not a finished space and the floors where just plywood. When we redid the upstairs for the girls we wanted the floors to mimic the downstairs of the house which is the original wide heart pine planks, so when you walked up the stairs it gave a congruent impression. We did not want to incur the large expense of buying salvaged heart pine right now though. We also wanted to keep the room light and airy, so a painted floor fit in with the cottagey look.

So what we did was lay new plywood down, filled the gaps with bondo, sanded smooth, then snapped chalk lines out to mimic the same size planking we have down stairs. At that point we routered out the lines, making sure to stagger the end joints just like you would when you lay a real wood floor. We did a quick sand after to get any burrs off and then painted the whole floor with a heavy duty floor enamel. The faux plank end product looks like we just painted the 'original' plank floor. It's held up very well, we have tons of kids up there almost every day playing on it. No one that's been up there can believe that was not the original floor either.

There tons of pics of the girl's room from start to finish at the link below. If you scroll down about half way you can see the floor as we were working on it. Hope this helps :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Girl's room

Zipdee, That is an amazing job you have done in your upstairs.
I have never seen this before.Love the colors and joy in the girls rooms. What are their ages?
So fun and well done. Floor is great also.

Hi Lyban,

Thanks so much for the kind comments! :) Our daughters are 12 yo, 10 yo and 8 yo. The project took about a year from start to finish with my DH and I working on it. At the end the girls and I had a lot of fun pulling the room together, all the color choices are a blend of each DD's favorite colors. We used the polka duvets as a jumping off piece.

I took a look at the pics. Wow. What a room. So bright and fresh and modern, yet seems homey and traditional somehow. You did a great job.

Thanks Zipdee for the info. I so love that space and everything you did.

Thank you Zipdee! I have everyone running scared because I am planning on painting or staining the pine floors white upstairs where the kids bedrooms are. I love your room. You need to enter it in some kind of magazine contest! It looks fabulous. Thanks for your help!

Dilly Dally, thanks so much for the kind comments :)

Slahgirl, *LOL* I can understand the running scared part, my DH at first wasn't on the bandwagon when I wanted to do the faux plank floor and then paint it. I just told him it's the subfloor and paint, what do you have to lose? :D Now he really thinks it sets the room off. I hope people come around to your way of thinking. :)