Through with Thursday-Back Room Floor

Ah, so many projects to pick from....

When I was going through our pictures in November to pick ones for a calendar, I wrote down a list of pictures of my different projects in my Notebook. Our old pictures are all in numbered (or dated) files in a Picture Folder. So, in order to see what the picture is, I still have to go the Pictures File, wait to look at the thumbnail, and choose that way. It takes a long time. We tried Picassa but it seemed to long to upload all the pictures. A while ago, I'd selected some pictures to put in my own folder, but somehow, we switched computers and I can't find the file. :-(

Now DH's phone will do Instant Upload, but my phone won't do it. My phone takes pretty good pictures and I can share my photos on Picassa (sometimes), or I can email them to myself and then share (sometimes-- there was a problem a couple days ago with sharing- maybe it's fixed now?).  Anyway, I guess when I get a new phone I'll be able to get my current pics more easily.

But what's the easiest way to view old photos? We have so many!

Now on to the project! I'll share the back room floor. I love painted floors! I plan to paint the floors in the master bedroom, DD's bedroom, the front entrance and the hall!

This was done in December 2011 and took 11 days, start to finish!  First, you can see the Good-one-side 3/4 inch plywood which I cleaned and filled all the cracks and seams with Wood Filler on Day 1.

 Oops, I don't know how to flip the picture. I thought I could do it here...

After 2 days of drying, on Day 3, I sanded with the hand sander, swept, vacuumed, damp mopped and put one coat of Beauti-tone Interior Exterior Latex Porch and Floor Paint tinted Morning Dew (Cream) from Home Hardware. It was diluted 10% with water and applied with the big roller attached to a broom handle.

 Day 4, I sanded again with hand sander and put another coat of  Morning Dew Floor Paint on with roller.

Day 5, I  used a Glaze- one part Silver/Grey Floor paint, one part Beauti-tone Liquid Latex Glaze. I had picked out a custom color, but it was so close to the already mixed Silver/Grey, the sales associate recommended I use that instead. I rubbed it on with damp rag and wiped off with dry rag. Then, I used one part Morning Dew, one part Glaze, rubbing on with damp rag and wiping off with a dry rag to blend.

Now the fun part! I measured a large square around the room. According to my calculations, the diamonds would be 20 inches tip to tip. So, ten inches from the corners I made a mark and then every 20 inches from that point, I marked all the way to the other corner . Then I used the chalk line to mark the diamonds, going from the first mark on one side to the first mark on the opposite corner on the parallel side. And then the same with the marks on the perpendicular sides. Then I taped around all the diamonds that I was going to paint using green painter's tape.

 

 Still Day 6, I painted Floor paint tinted Shale (Dark Grey) in the diamonds with a small foam roller.

 Day 7, I painted a second coat of Shale Floor Paint.

 Day 8, I dry brushed on Floor Paint tinted Blue Meadow (Dark Blue). At the same time I dry brushed on the Shale Floor Paint to blend. Then I brushed on the Blue Meadow paint diluted with water and blended with a cloth.

 Then we removed the tape! Here are DS and DD helping take the tape off. By the end, they had a big ball of tape to play ball with.  I guess I never got a picture of the finished floor before we moved back in finally on Day 11.

Now, it's over a year later, and the floor has held up pretty well.  I've noticed some of the seams need to be refilled and by the side back door it's getting quite scuffed up.  We've closed off our front door for the winter so have only been using the back door and it gets quite a lot of traffic. I had figured since it's diamonds and they are glazed and not solid colored, I could always touch up the individual squares as needed, but I haven't actually done that yet. Perhaps when we open the front part of the house back up!  :-)