Spring ’24 ORC Week 3: Painted Tile Floors

The tile floors are painted and they look amazing! Well actually, they’re only half done but that’s ok, we’re making progress!

I had to do the laundry room and kitchen in two parts so that we could still use the refrigerator and kitchen area while the I was working on the laundry room side. Luckily I had enough socks to make it through a couple weeks of not having access to the washer and dryer. Now that it’s done, I moved everything back into the laundry room, did several loads of laundry and put the fridge back in place. Next, I can move the stove and finish painting on the kitchen side.

So many of you have been asking about the process of painting the floors so I’m going to break it down for you into steps and link everything that I used so you can do this too! It’s not terribly difficult, just time consuming. But really, most of the time is spent waiting for paint to dry. The actual work itself was only a few hours.

Ready to do this? Here we go!

This page contains affiliate links. If you choose to purchase after clicking a link, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. These commissions help me pay for operating costs for the blog and are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support!

Here is everything I used for this project:

• Trim Puller to remove baseboards without wall damage
• Dual Wet/Dry Vacuum
• Krud Kutter Degreaser
• Valspar Bonding Primer
• Valspar Porch and Floor Paint (HGTV Sherwin Williams color “Realist Beige” and “Diverse Beige”)
• Paint Roller Handle
• Paint Roller Extension Pole
• Paint Rollers
• Paint Roller Cover
• My favorite paint brush
• Painters tape
• Paint Tray and Liners
• Paint Can Pour & Store
• Pour Spout for 5 Gallon Paint Bucket
• Respirator mask
• Protective eyewear
• Latex gloves
• Polyurethane
• Foam roller handle and rollers
• Foam brushes
• Brad nailer
• Caulk Gun and caulk
• Spackle to fill nail holes

DAY 1, STEP 1:

Remove the baseboards and clean the floors. And when I say clean, I mean CLEAN!

I started with my normal cleaning routine using my favorite wet/dry vacuum. This thing is awesome. It vacuums and mops all at once which is a total time saver! Highly recommend.

Ok, now that we’ve cleaned the floors, we’re going to clean again with a degreaser. I was amazed how much more grime came off the floors with this. Krud Kutter for the win!

Do not skip this step! If the floors aren’t super clean, the primer will not adhere and you’ll have peeling paint in no time. Trust me. Spend the extra time to clean really well so that the floors will last as long as possible.

*If you have really glassy smooth floor tiles, you may need to scuff sand after cleaning as well. Our tiles had quite a bit of texture so I did not do any sanding.

DAY 2, STEP 2:

Now that the floors are clean, it’s time to prime! You could definitely clean and prime in one day, but I could only work for a couple hours at a time so I split up the cleaning one Day 1 and the priming on day 2. You can not just use any old paint primer, you need a special bonding primer that will stick to tile. I used this one from Valspar that I got at Lowe’s. I got a 5 gallon bucket since I’m planning on doing the entire house, but for this small space, I probably only needed 1-2 gallons.

To paint on the primer, I used an angled brush to do the edging and a roller with an extension handle for the rest. I probably should have done two coats of primer, but I only did one. Coverage seemed fine though!

DAY 3, STEP 3:

Once the primer was dry, I painted the entire floor with the base color that I chose (the lighter of the two colors). I know most people use the Rustoleum Floor Kit, but I couldn’t find the colors I wanted (and the kit is expensive) so I used this floor paint from Valspar that was tintable to any color. I chose HGTV Sherwin Williams 6078 “Realist Beige” (lighter color) and “Diverse Beige” (darker color).

Again, they sell 5 gallon buckets as well as 1 gallon cans at Lowe’s. I only needed one gallon of each for this half of the room but I bought 3 gallons of the lighter color and two gallons of the darker shade, planning ahead to do the rest of the house at some point.

This paint specifies that you need to wait a full 24 hours before doing a second coat, even though it is dry to the touch within a couple hours. Like I mentioned before, this is why the project is time consuming because you have to wait an entire day between coats. I knew I was going to need to do two coats of each color but because I was on a short timeline, I only did one coat of the lighter color and then the next day did the first coat of the darker color to make the diamond pattern. I did this to save a day of drying time (I’ll explain in the next step). It would have been way easier to do two coats of the lighter color on two consecutive days before starting the diamonds and I would recommend doing that if you’re not pressed for time.

DAY 4, STEP 4:

To paint the diamonds, I first figured out how I wanted to the pattern to look in the most prominent part of the room, the kitchen. There are only four tiles across so I wanted to make sure that the diamonds were centered in the kitchen area.

I worked out towards the walls from that pattern in the middle. I started painting on the left side of the room and worked my way across towards window and the kitchen.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to paint the diamonds exactly. I thought about free handing it, using a snapped chalk line, using some kind of ruler covered with painters tape or just taping it which seemed like the best choice. I decided to test out the blue painters tape in the laundry room just in case it peeled up the base coat, which is what I was most concerned about. I know there is another kind of painters tape made for this purpose (I think it’s the green one), but I already had the blue tape on hand so I went for it. I definitely would NOT have left the tape on very long because that may have pulled up the fresh paint at that point. So what I did was tape one diamond at a time, paint it with a brush, and immediately remove the tape. This worked great! It actually had to be done one square at a time because the tape one one diamond would be in the way of where I needed to tape the adjacent one. If you’re doing this diamond pattern, just make sure that the edge of the tape goes corner to corner and you’re painting the diamond on the inside of the tape line.

DAY 5, STEP 5:

The floor is looking really good but I could tell it needed a second coat on both colors. When you looked up close you could see thin spots and roller marks and brush strokes where the paint didn’t have great coverage. I was pretty sure it would need two coats after I painted the first base coat, but like I said, I was trying to save a day of drying time. So basically I traded more working time on this step to save an entire day of drying time. If you’re covering a large area, I would not do it this way. I would do a base coat of the lighter color on Day 3 and another coat on Day 4, then start the diamonds on Day 5 and do a second coat on the diamonds on Day 6.

Instead what I did was take both colors and two paint brushes and go back and paint each tile individually, alternating light and dark paint as I worked my way across. I’m actually really glad that I did this, because it was easier to get into the grout lines with the paint brush as opposed to the roller which definitely missed some spots.

I did not re-tape for this because that would have taken way too much time and I didn’t feel the need. I have a lot of painting experience at this point and a very steady hand and trust myself to paint straight lines. I also didn’t need to get all the way up to the painted edges on a lot of the tiles so it wasn’t too risky. But, if you don’t trust yourself, I would definitely use tape as you go. It was also good to go back and use the brush on every tile so I could correct any imperfections from the first coat. There weren’t many, but there were a couple spots that had a tiny bit of bleed through. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so things like that really irk me when I know the mistakes are there and I have to see them every day. I’m sure no one else would have noticed but me.

DAY 6, STEP 6:

The painting is done and now it needs to be sealed! I’m using this polyurethane to seal it but there are other products out there. I will warn you, this particular product says it is not made for floors and will need to be re-coated periodically. I plan on re-coating once a year but we’ll see how it holds up. I haven’t re-coated in my bathroom that I did a couple years ago and it’s held up great except for one spot where a stool is constantly begin moved back and forth. Ok, full disclosure, it’s a Squatty Potty. If you don’t have one, do yourself a favor and get one. So worth it!

Ok back to the floors…We will be a strict no shoes in the house family at this point and now that the floors are painted, we will be extra careful. We do have two little dachshunds that have long nails, but I don’t think they’ll do any damage.

I applied the polyurethane with a foam roller and a foam brush to get into the grout lines and edges. It goes on milky and dries crystal clear. I’m using a satin finish (same as the paint) but you can get it in a glossy or matte finish as well, depending on your preference. This particular poly is dry in 2 hours and can be recoated in 3 hours, so I was able to do all 3 coats in one day. I recommend wearing a respirator mask, protective eyewear and gloves because this stuff is pretty smelly. I really wish I could have had the back door open but it was too windy and way too much dirt and debris would have blown in and ended up stuck on the wet floor. I also kept the fan off to limit the dust and things getting onto the floor. Even so, I had to sweep away some dirt between each coat of paint and poly and I was picking hairs out that weren’t there the day before. Luckily I was able to easily scratch off any dog or human hair that I found so it wasn’t a big deal. After finishing the 3 coats of poly, it takes a full 24 hours to fully cure. Then we can start moving back in!

Day 7, Step 7:

After allowing the polyurethane to dry for 24 hours, I reinstalled the baseboards with my brad nailer, caulked the seams and filled the nail holes with wood filler.

I was really nervous to move the appliances and risk scratching the brand new floors so I took extra precautions by using a furniture mover cart on wheels and painters paper on the floor so the wheels didn’t touch the new painted surface. It worked great and the floors are perfect! Everything is back in place and the floors look fantastic! They came out even better than I hoped and it really changes the entire space.

Next week, I’ll be painting the floors on the other half of the room but it is quite a bit smaller so shouldn’t take as much time as far as actual working time. The drying time is what it is so it will take another week. After that, it’s time to take on the cabinets! Stay tuned for that!

Until next time, happy DIY-ing!

Follow along on the ORC blog to check out the other participants and stay up to date with my project on social media!

Feel free to comment or send me an email with any questions about this project. Watch the full YouTube tutorial HERE!