Question:
Sorry, but I must paint the hardwood, badly stained and damaged floors in the old farmhouse that we just bought. Please tell me how to do this and what paint to use and how to protect the painted floor. Thank you so much.
Answer:
Dear Sylvia
Don’t be sorry, you will still have a wood floor, but with a wonderful painted finish on it. Feel free to browse my web site to get some book titles on this topic. But in short, have the floor PROFESSIONALLY SANDED. Don’t do this yourself. It will need to be sanded at least to 100 grit sandpaper, then screened, as if they were going to stain the wood (yes, that smooth). Find a company that knows how to do this.
Then you can either apply (you or a professional painter) 3-4 coats of the Flecto Co. colors in plastic polyurethane paint. Their web site is at http://www.flecto.com. This is an oil modified polyurethane paint, and will take several days for each coat to cure, and scuffing well, and cleaning between all coats will be required.
Or you can use an acrylic paint (from a paint store allowing more choice of colors and less fumes), and apply 3-4 coats of a water-based finish on it. You can go to http://www.basiccoatings.com or http://www.bonakemi.com to find out what paints are compatible with their finishes. If you go the acrylic paint and clear finish route, try each company’s Street Shoe and Traffic finish respectively. But I should say this will prove to be an expensive way to do it, and no more durable than the Flecto paint, just more choice of colors.