Stenciled floor

Our half bathroom in our basement had the ugliest floors. Stained vinyl the previous owners had installed. I needed an inexpensive fix and replacing them wasn't an option. 

I'm addicted to Instagram and saw several people that had chalk painted their vinyl or linoleum flooring and it looked fantastic. I figured it couldn't get any worse so I gave it a try and holy smokes the difference is amazing!  

Here is what the old floor looked like. 

Step one was cleaning and then priming the floors. I used some leftover primer from another project and rolled it on with a paint roller.

I let the primer dry for several hours and then painted on the base coat color. I used 
Rust-oleum Chalked paint in charcoal. I found mine at Menards (link)

I used a small roller to roll on the paint and angled brush to get in the corners.

I let the base color dry overnight.

The next morning I started on the stenciling. This part took me all morning and afternoon to complete. I used painters tape on the edge of the stencil and lightly rolled on the Chalked Linen White paint with a small roller. 

My advice is take your time, don't rush, and wear some knee pads.

There were spots where the paint bled through the stencil. After everything dried I used a tiny paintbrush to do touch-ups. 

The third day I used a matte finish polyurethane and did three coats on the floor, letting it dry completely in between coats. This one is my favorite (link)

I love the floors and since I have leftover paint I'm thinking about stenciling the floors in my laundry room as well. I'll keep you posted. 

Linking to the following

creatively unleashed link party

The Creative Circle

NEW YEAR NEW FLOORS

Happy 2016!

So Excited to be sharing my first post of the new year and boy o boy it's a big one!

Over the holidays while I was pouring over photos of everyone's beautiful Christmas decor on Instagram and blogs my home was in a state of complete disaster. 

My husband and I decided that winter break was the perfect time to replace the flooring in our ENTIRE main floor. He had vacation hours to use, I was off from babysitting for two weeks, and our kids were out of school to help (free labor).

Here are some before shots so you can see all the glorious forms of flooring we were dealing with.

 

We had light colored carpet in my craft room, dining room and family room. Our kitchen had light/stained vinyl flooring. Our entry hall and half bath were hardwood, and our mudroom had another type of wood laminate. Yep, that's four different types of flooring.

My husband and I looked at several flooring options and finally decided on a hand scraped wood laminate. We ordered it at Best Laminate (it was the same exact flooring carried at a name brand store, but less expensive). 

We worked one area at a time.

-Move out furniture

-remove old flooring and baseboards

-lay new flooring

-move on to next room

etc. etc. etc.

Here are some shots during the process.

 Did I mention the million of staples that had to be removed.

 Yes at one point we had a toilet in our kitchen.

Since the baseboards were off and we had some nice weather they all received a fresh coat of paint.

I have to say that my husband is the hardest worker I know. He worked from early morning to late at night on the floors with myself, my dad or our kids assisting him and sometimes all on his own. He had all the flooring installed in a week which was great because all the dust and chaos was really getting to me.

We are in LOVE with the new floors. 

You may have noticed that I also made some other changes to our house. Some spaces received a new coat of paint and we've added some new furniture as well. I'm hoping to post a more detailed look at each room soon.

Thank you for coming by!

LINKING UP TO...

work it wednesday, handymancraftywoman, tipsandtrickstooraganizeyourlife,

the36thavenue, myuncommonsliceofsuburbia,

homestoriesatoz, elizabeth&co, featherednestfriday, thehandmadehangout