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Before you start to paint your floor with fantastic colors or faux finishes… don’t forget the prep work. All the paint preparation details are laid out for you here: Ideas For Painting Floors
Now… we get to the fun part. The painting process for floors is straightforward – if you follow some simple rules.
photo credit: jsymmetry
Step 1. If you haven’t already taped off everything that needs protecting… get it done now. The base boards… cabinet bases… door frames, make sure you are protecting everything. I hate to get finished painting and find that I have several more hours of clean up because I was too lazy to tape off everything.
Step 2. Don’t start painting the center of the floor first. Paint all the edges with a brush. This is called cutting in. It means getting down on your hands and knees with a brush and painting a nice smooth coat of your floor color right next to all the walls and cabinets.
One thing to avoid… don’t paint this in a stripe. Most new painters will paint all the edges as if it were a one width stripe. The magic trick is to paint the edges nice and clean but… the area where the paint works towards the center of the room should be uneven.
As paint dries and you paint over in layers the built up areas will be a bit uneven and show. By leaving this “edge” uneven… you will reduce the risk of having a striped layer around the edge of your room.
Step 3. After the edges painted… the only thing left is getting the color on the rest of the floor. It’s a simple as rolling on the paint just like you would paint a wall.
Tip: Plan the painting job exit. Start painting as far away from the exit door as you can and paint right up to the exit as you finish. Yes… you have heard the old saying “Don’t paint yourself into a corner”. You would be surprised at how often it happens.
Two coats are fine… Three coats are better. The key is to make sure that the paint is not only dry – but cured for a day between coats. If you have to walk on the painted floors between coats… wear socks!
Seal the Deal!
After you are in love with your new painted floors – you will need to coat it with two coats of clear WATER-BASED SPAR URETHANE GLOSS . Make sure to let the floor “cure” for several days first. Water-based urethane will not turn yellow and it should give you several years of great looking floors.
Get creative with your floor painting. Plan out a design or make a checked pattern, or stripes or something cool and abstract. Don’t think that you just have to paint it a solid color and that’s it. You don’t. 
You’re only limited by your imagination.
Now…get out there and splash some paint around!
P.S. Sometimes it’s hard to let your imagination run wild…so I found these books that have some neat d
esign ideas in them. Take a look and get inspired. Click on the pictures and you can get them on Amazon!
Decorative Floors of Venice – If you’ve ever been to Venice you know the floors of the Basillica are just AMAZING! If you haven’t been you should check this book out. It’ll give you a small insight in to the beautiful work you’ll find in Venice.
Painting Abstracts: Ideas, Projects and Techniques – If you like abstract designs this book has some GREAT ideas for you. If you click on the link (picture) you can see the inside (and some samples abstracts) over on Amazon. Several of just the sample pages of the book are PERFECT for a floor!
