What and how to paint a wooden floor Recently, less and less people are interested. Materials and technologies are rapidly changing, and wooden floors are no longer installed along the logs in new buildings, preferring a cement-sand screed with subsequent installation of laminate or linoleum. However, wooden floors can still be found in private houses and old-style apartment buildings. And for some, these floors do not cease to be relevant, attracting with their environmental friendliness and naturalness.
Over time, the painted wood floor wears out and loses its original appearance. You have to update it or change to a new one. And in order to qualitatively and beautifully process, paint the floor, you need to understand the features and recommendations for carrying out these works.
Before painting the floor, care must be taken to remove large gaps between the boards and trim the floor if it is not even. The cracks can be puttied with oil putty by adding a little sawdust to it. Irregularities and dents on the boards are also puttied with oil putty to match the paint. After that, painting the floor will be much more economical and beautiful. You also need to remove the knots with a chisel or grinder and then putty nicely and evenly. You can only paint a dry floor and therefore, before painting, dry it well.
The better you dry the next layer of paint, drying oil or primer, the better the quality of your work will be. Poorly dried layers lead to wrinkling of the paint and loss of its attractive appearance.
To make sure that the paint layer has dried well, you should lightly press on the painted surface with your fingers or a piece of newspaper. If they stop sticking, then it's time to move on to applying a new layer.
When painting the floor, the so-called “flutes” are very suitable - flat brushes of different widths. They are mainly used for painting floor edges, baseboards and any hard-to-reach parts of the floor. The main surface is easier and faster to paint with a roller. In this case, the pile on the roller should not be very long. Otherwise, the paint layer will be uneven and rough.
How to paint an old wood floor
Cleaning the floor from old paint The option of repainting a floor that has already been painted and worn out is the simplest. But only if you do not remove the old paintwork and scrape the floor. It is only necessary to decide on the type of paint (more often it is oil or pentaphthalic), which the floor was previously covered with. It may take more than 2 coats of paint to paint over a dark shade with a lighter one.
Before painting, it is necessary to thoroughly clean the surface, remove loose paint and sand these places with sandpaper (if necessary, putty with oil putty). The boards should be painted in the direction of their length, trying to ensure that the paint lays as thinly as possible during shading, which will avoid the appearance of wrinkles or bubbles and speed up drying. Let the paint dry for 4-5 days (if necessary, paint with a second layer). The final operation is washing the floor with hot water without adding any detergents. You should also wipe the floor with a damp cloth daily for a week.
Painting a new floor
So, you still decided to completely remove the old paintwork, scrape the floor or even replace it with a new one. How to paint the floor in this case? There are several ways:
- With a simple painting, the floor is first covered with drying oil or a primer and allowed to dry for three days, and then covered with paint once. After complete drying of the first layer, apply the second. The boards are painted in the direction of their length, trying to ensure that the paint lays as thinly as possible during shading. Each coat of paint should dry for 4-5 days. Wash the completely dried floor with hot water and wipe it with a cloth soaked in hot water within a week from the moment the staining is completed. This is necessary so that the paint does not fade and tacks do not appear on it, as well as to remove the emerging drying oil.
- Improved floor painting is complemented by the puttying process. After the drying oil (primer) has dried, the areas of the boards on which there are irregularities and cracks must be treated with oil putty (the putty must match the color of the paint). When the putty dries, it must be cleaned with sandpaper. Then putty is applied a second time and cleaned again using fine-grained sandpaper. Next, a primer is applied, after which it dries, we proceed to painting.
- Another way is high-quality painting. In fact, this is the same improved painting, carried out more carefully with the application of additional layers of putty. You can also reinforce the coating. In this case, the second layer of putty in composition should be much thinner than the first. Gauze or fiberglass (fiberglass mesh) is laid on top. These materials must be well stretched and pressed into the putty with a spatula. When the surface dries and it is cleaned, a putty is applied to it for the third time, which is left until completely dry and cleaned again. Primer and paint are covered in three layers. The floors painted in this way look great, because the joints of the boards become invisible, the floor becomes even and solid.
Lacquering the floor
In order to preserve the color and texture of wood when painting a wooden floor, it is necessary to use colorless varnishes with good wear resistance. If the natural color of the boards in some parts of the floor surface differs in color, then these places can be treated with a tint varnish that will hide these imperfections.
Varnish must be selected in accordance with the type of wood from which the floor is made. Since some tree species have soft wood (for example, pine) and are easily deformed from mechanical stress, a special varnish must be chosen to cover such a floor (for soft wood or strictly for a specific wood species). A simple parquet varnish will not work in this case, as it is designed for durable and hard wood (mainly oak). Moreover, if the parquet varnish needs to be applied to a pre-primed surface, then the floor board varnish is simply applied in three layers, each of which must dry completely.
If you want to give your floor a certain shade, then this can be done in the following ways: pre-tint the wooden floor with special stains in the color you need, and then apply a varnish coating on top (two or three layers); or immediately use colored wood oils and waxes (required after a thorough sanding of the floor), applying it manually or mechanically.
