We painted our floors with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint!

Hubby Jerry and I were brainstorming what to do about our old hardwood floors. We love our old home, but years of pets and children make for worn floors. We spent hours at Lowes looking at products. Originally, we were going to rip all the hardwood up and start over with new. We had stayed at a beach house last year that had whitewashed wood floors and we both loved the look. I had loved it before, but seeing is believing and he fell in love with it too. Then…. the PRICE. We were also redoing two of our bathrooms and we couldn’t swallow the price of new hardwoods or come to terms with putting laminate over top.

 

I believed the floors could be saved. Enter plan C. A friend of mine, Angela, had recently painted her floors with Annie Sloan Chalk paint, so I messaged her and dragged Jerry over to see them. Then we visited our local Annie Sloan supplier (I would give you the name, but the shop is now closed) and had a tutorial. We left the shop with six quarts and a prayer.

What we did:

1. Prepared the floors by cleaning them with Dawn dishwashing detergent was all they needed. We tried sanding the stains, but that backfired, bringing the long hidden tannins out of the wood.

2. Mixed the paint with water. We used a fifty/fifty mixture of paint and water. We choose Annie Sloan Pure White.

3. Painted. We quickly learned to paint each board from beginning to end to avoid brush marks.

4. Put on a coat of polyacrylic. No walking on the floor for 24-48 hours.

5. Second coat of paint mixture.

6. Second coat of polyacrylic. No walking on the floor for 24-48 hours. Be careful moving furniture back as it takes a week for everything to set.

If you want to know more about our DIY projects here at The Whole House, check our our latest The Whole House Podcast- If You Give a Mom a Hammer!