Painted plywood floor

[thistlebloom]

Oh boy Cane! I say go for it! I think you can make it look great! And a hard surface is so much better than carpet. We have tile everywhere but the bedrooms, and if I got my way the bedrooms would be tiled too.
Of course my husband is a tile man so that made it cheaper to have done. We would have loved hardwood, but we (I) track a lot of dirt and pebbles in, and even though we kick our shoes off at the door it somehow migrates around, so we chose tile for durability.

In our old fixer upper house I had to wait a long time (years!) for flooring, and in the meantime lived with plain old cement floors, which were actually very easy to care for, , and had I known just how long it was going to be before the permanent floor went in I would certainly have painted it. A big faux rug under the dining table would have been cool!

Do it girl. If you don't like it you can always vinyl over it, or recarpet, or repaint even.

 

[aftermidnight]

@canesisters , this picture's not a good example as the painted floor was on the way out . Paint almost sanded off down to the plywood but I have to say the painted floors stood up pretty well.

I had a painted kitchen sub floor for years...and years...and years, why you ask, because we really didn't know what we wanted to put down, having animals, and a lot of gravel paths, also money was pretty tight back then. Soooooo, using porch enamel I first painted the floor a rusty red, repainting it the same color every three or four years, got tired of that and painted them blue, repainting them every three or four years until very serendipitishly ( I don't think that's a word but very fitting ).
We had just ordered tile for the front room, small room with fireplace so had to have a fire proof mat, looked like h*ll so I thought why not tile the whole room, problem solved. The guy arrived with the tile to do the job, the bad news was some had been broken in shipping so he had to order some more. My mind clicked into gear and asked is there enough to do the kitchen floor, he said yes, I said go for it before hubby could open his mouth, I then ordered more tile for the living room. One thing led to another once those two rooms were done, well, that's another story all I can say other than two bedrooms the whole house is now tiled, absolutely love it, so easy to keep clean. I think I was pretty smart when asked what color of grout I wanted, I said the closest you have to dirt .

Annette

 

[thistlebloom]

You just can't beat ceramic tile can you Annette? I think it's the easiest maintenance ever. Just sweep and once a week use the Shark steamer for a good cleaning.
Easy peasy.

My grout is also dirt colored.

 

[Smart Red]

My first thought was plywood planking as shown in the second URL. I know I would like that look.

I do agree that there is a lot of inexpensive vinyl available. We put some down -- without glue -- in spouse's bathroom since we plan to redo the room soon. It's working out well.

Whatever you decide to do, paint will cover a multiple of errors. In my first house I painted the plywood floor in the kitchen. Not an especially good job, but since the kitchen sink was set on saw horses for the first few years, the floor wasn't a big issue with me.

 

[aftermidnight]

" The kitchen sink was set on saw horses" that brings back memories. When we bought our small house we added two rooms, a new kitchen and another bedroom. At the time my kitchen sink was in a tiny pantry off the kitchen/now dining room. While we were building the new kitchen we propped the sink up on saw horses, there it was standing alone in the middle of the new kitchen until we put in the new cabinets, counters and plumbing
Annette

 

[Beekissed]

I love how painted floors look. I've lived on painted plywood floors before, they were grey~as in porch paint grey. Wore well, didn't show dirt much, rugs looked GREAT on it.

I say go for it! You could even have a little fun with it by painting a border stripe or some such to give it a custom look.

Here's a brown one...I can't say I'm a fan....

This one took some time!

This one's cool....

I LOVE this one but don't know how in the world they did that!

Here's a pick showing them doing it.....

This one looks like stain and poly...

I like this one too...

I think this one is my favorite....

Or maybe this one!

Ooooo, I really like this one too!!!!

 

[thistlebloom]

The second to last one looks like it was done with a special wood grain roller. My mom finished some wooden file boxes with one of those. You roll it over a fresh painted surface and it leaves a wood grain look.Or something like that...

Gee, now I'm wishing I had a plywood floor to play with! What a lot of potential creative fun!

 

[aftermidnight]

We've used one of these tools to give a wood grain on some cupboards. https://www.google.ca/search?q=wood...r7DLAhUCwWMKHe2FDLQQ_AUICCgC&biw=1215&bih=764
Brush on a base color, when dry paint over with a glaze, while wet you pull it through with a rocking motion.
Annette

 

[Carol Dee]

@canesisters , this picture's not a good example as the painted floor was on the way out . Paint almost sanded off down to the plywood but I have to say the painted floors stood up pretty well.
View attachment 12004
I had a painted kitchen sub floor for years...and years...and years, why you ask, because we really didn't know what we wanted to put down, having animals, and a lot of gravel paths, also money was pretty tight back then. Soooooo, using porch enamel I first painted the floor a rusty red, repainting it the same color every three or four years, got tired of that and painted them blue, repainting them every three or four years until very serendipitishly ( I don't think that's a word but very fitting ).
We had just ordered tile for the front room, small room with fireplace so had to have a fire proof mat, looked like h*ll so I thought why not tile the whole room, problem solved. The guy arrived with the tile to do the job, the bad news was some had been broken in shipping so he had to order some more. My mind clicked into gear and asked is there enough to do the kitchen floor, he said yes, I said go for it before hubby could open his mouth, I then ordered more tile for the living room. One thing led to another once those two rooms were done, well, that's another story all I can say other than two bedrooms the whole house is now tiled, absolutely love it, so easy to keep clean. I think I was pretty smart when asked what color of grout I wanted, I said the closest you have to dirt .
View attachment 12007
Annette

I wanted grout that was grey and wound up with cream. Well about 9 months later it is more DIRT than cream. Hard to get clean.

 

[Carol Dee]

@canesisters my sister (Jeni Ann) ripped out all carpet in their old farmhouse. She has painted floors throughout. I will try to get pics. She is VERY artistic and has painted several area rugs onto it.