Decorating the Floors

Painting floors can be an inexpensive solution to redesigning a space without spending high dollars in replacing and refinishing floors. Painting can be decorative, original, and rather easy to achieve. Painted floors can offer the home a tremendous scope of choosing colors, either to match exactly or to compliment other furnishings in the room. The range of colors and materials available is huge and there is an increase number of so-called historical paint ranges on the market that will offer an easy to live with hues. From concrete to wood painted floors can become a fun and whimsical focal point in a design.

In our first house we tried this method of design on our back patio. It was a concrete patio that offered nothing to our new landscape design. We were creating a summer cottage garden feel and there smack dab in the middle of it all was this old and ugly concrete slab. To keep things simple we decided to paint it. There were variety ideas that I had, and being that I am a fine artist I really thought about painting a faux rug in the center of it. In the end we did a base coat of creamy sand. After that coat dried we did a grid pattern and taped it off. We applied a slate color on top over the tape. We allowed the paint to dry and pulled back the tape to reveal a tile appearance. I went to work with shadowing and highlight with cream and charcoal gray. This added to the tile look. It was the extra attention to detail that helped to create the illusion of slate tile on the back patio. I enjoyed that space for a long time and every pot and plant that I put on it looked terrific.

Any number of design options provides virtually limitless scope for further improving and manipulating a floor space with paint, allowing for the exercise of personal creative ability.

Here is the good news. You don't have to be an artist to achieve this whimsical look. You can achieve anything with the variety of stencils available or even painters tape. Instead of using an all over design you could leave the floor basically plain and just add a border around the edge. Stain or paint can be used on wood and concrete. There are specific paints and stains that are used for either material. Follow the directions according to the finish. Find that inspiration the sky is the limit.

Happy creating!!!