We are going to paint the walls a light color , maybe gray

thank you

You did a good job on your floors. I don't think I want to strip it. I want to put something down to cover it up.

https://laurelberninteriors.com/2017/12/31/painted-wood-floors-bad-idea/

Thanks!

But I'm confused - it's already covered with paint, and I don't think you want to put more paint or finishes on top of the paint (that'll not make it look any better and will make it more difficult to refinish down the line if you choose to do that later).

Are you thinking along the lines of throwing down carpeting or vinyl planks on top of it?

i'm sorry, Yes something like vinyl planks, do they look good I don't want the floors to look cheap.

I think refinishing, assuming the underlying floors are in good condition, will give you by far the best looking option.

To be perfectly frank, I'm not a fan of wood-look vinyl flooring at all. It always looks and feels cheap and fake to me.

I would get quotes on both putting in a floating overlay floor and refinishing the painted hardwood. If the prices are similar, definitely go with refinishing - the look of real wood will ALWAYS trump the appearance of a faux wood flooring product.

I agree about the vinyl, I will check on the prices. We can't hardly find anyone that will give a good price on refinishing the floors because they are painted and it will be a mess.

I would just go with it and paint something fun over it. They’re already painted, can’t screw them up now!

Queenvictorian, your floors look great but I don’t think they were painted. Just old adhesive, much easier to remove than paint.

Or you could go white if you like to clean?

If you plan on staying in this home for at least 5 years, sand the paint off, stain or leave natural depending on condition of the floor. It can look beautiful and you will be preserving a quality element in your home. Vinyl IMO would be the last thing i would do. If you can’t afford to sand and refinish now then live with them and put rugs down until you can do it right. However, now is the best time because you don’t have furniture to juggle around or move out. Test a area in a closet to see how the wood looks under all the paint. That will help you understand the job too. Good luck and congratulations on your new home!!

If you have money for good vinyl planking you have money to refinish them. The issue is more likely HOW when you need to be living there. It won't be convenient that is for sure. I do think it is a leap to assume the previous owners painted Nice LOOKING hard wood floors. You could end up not happy in the end. I second the suggestion of painting white and then adding area rugs.

If you don't want to refinish: Painted wood floors

Bri Bosh, I can assure you those floors were painted. About five or six times, including a super old layer of nasty oil-based paint. The room I showed didn't have the most recent layer of paint on it (previous owner tried to cover up the horrible ugly state of the floors and then just ran out of paint and didn't finish). And one of the other rooms had little nail holes and carpet padding residue left over from some ancient carpet.

Several layers of paint (or hell-adhesive that looks as bad as and is as hard to sand off as several layers of paint).

OP's floor looks like it only has one layer of paint, going from how slick and even it seems to be.

Yes, there's a worry that the reason the floors were painted over because there was something wrong with them. We had that worry, thinking there might be water damage, given the blotchiness and the age of the house, and we were lucky to find flawless pine. Or the OP's floor was just beat up and tired looking, and the previous owners took the lazy cheap route and painted it to make it look "nicer" to put up for sale (better option would have been for them to not worry about it).

@Susie - I would not put down vinyl flooring. The painted surface is probably going to react (chemically) with a vinyl floor sitting on top (yes...even with two cured products they can still chemically react to one another). If you want to cover up with something cheap(er) than sand/refinish, then I would look at laminate with a nice underpad.

If you do not want your floors to "look cheap" then you do not want to go with "low priced" vinyl nor mid-range laminate. Once everything is said and done, a "nice" looking vinyl/laminate will be very, very, very close to the price of a sanded/refinished hardwood floor. I'm not kidding about that.

A nice quality vinyl = $5-$7/sf. Preparation for floor (make sure it is flat enough) = $2/sf. Installation costs = $2/sf. If you look at it, the TOTAL costs for vinyl = $9 - $11/sf.

A traditional sand/refinish (without paint) = $5/sf (all in). With painted surface, you can add another $2-$3/sf. That means $7-$8/sf to get a decent hardwood out of it. That is still cheaper than $9 - $11/sf for vinyl.

Only laminate will be cheaper because a HIGH quality laminate STOPS at $5/sf. But then you need underlay. And the floor STILL NEEDS to be flattened before installation. Again it is close to the price of refinishing.

Carpet is the cheapest option because it requires NOTHING for prep. And carpet can be the lowest price per square foot and the lowest price for installation.

It's your home. You will need to make the call. Personally I would start with finding out how much WOOD is left on these floors. You need a MINIMUM of 3mm (prefer 4mm) of wood ABOVE the tongue to be able to refinish. Check that FIRST before you go any further.

Ah queenvictoria, that picture tells a much different story! My mistake, the photo you posted looked like the adhesive used for linoleum. They did a great job. About what was the cost per sq ft for that refinish?

Yeah it was weird looking - it looked like gunked up and damaged floor with maybe some whitewash on it or something, so the crazy amount of paint was a bit of a surprise. At one point while sanding I thought I was getting down to wood, but it was just a layer of tan paint!

As for cost, this was a DIY job. Husband's folks came out and stayed with us for a week to help out, and we rented/bought tools and bought the sandpaper (lots) and stain and polyurethane. I never actually tallied our monetary costs, but I think for the ~800 sq ft attic, it was like $1 or so a square foot for tools and materials? The labor was the real commitment though.

I guess that's the breakdown of new vinyl floor vs refinishing. For the new floor, which is easy to install, you're paying mostly for materials, but for the refinish, you're paying mostly for labor. But if you're hiring out, that hardly matters - you're just paying attention to price per square foot.

I had someone come out and check he said that if he refinished the floor that some of the paint would still be in the grain of the wood. He could not get it out. I looked at the laminated floors and they just don't look good to me.i know there are other brands maybe I can checkout.

Did the guy take out his sander and confirm that was the case? Otherwise, I don't think I wloudly believe him. If you look at the in progress pic of my floor I posted the other day, you'll see that old deep layer of red paint. There are some spots between the floorboards and in a handful of deep gouges/grain where you can still see some paint, but you have to get close and look for it. Your floor has brown paint on it. Even if some remains in the cracks, it'll blend in with the wood and be very hard to notice (more so than the remnants of red and white paint in our floor). I'd still take that over laying a plastic floor on top.

Ok I'm going to go for it. I will send you pictures on the results Thanks for all your help

If you can find a really experienced floor finisher they should be able to get all the paint off, fill the cracks, and then stain whatever color you want.

Our refinisher had a buffer that was so powerful that he had to connect it up to 240 volt power, but he was able to carefully remove the old finish. He also had a dust recovery system that captured nearly all the dust.

When he got done it looked like bare oak flooring with no color. Then he applied a filler compound that was worked into all cracks and crevices, and buffed smooth. When he applied the stain it all filled in and there is no color difference between the old 1940 flooring and 2014 flooring that was newly installed.

Bruce

My daughter's first house had painted hardwood flooring. They had it refinished. If there was any paint left in the wood grain I never noticed. Furniture and carpeting also distracts from any imperfections. I think you'll end up loving your refinished floors much better than laminate! Good luck.