How to Paint a Checkerboard Floor, Parts 4 & 5

Back for more? You have made it to the end!! I am hoping the tutorial is easy to understand.  I do hope if anyone has any questions that you email or call me.  I will try my best to answer them!

My floor layout.

The supplies. Go to Faux Effects Stain

This is how your tape should look in the points that they meet.1

Divide your template through the corners and you will get your measurements.

How to Paint a Checkerboard Floor Parts 2 & 3

Hopefully my first video of this series made sense.  I apologize for my lack of photo editing skills, and the abrupt ending.  If I ever record tutorials again, I will shoot shorter films so they don't have to be chopped up. In the meantime, keep in mind I am a decorative artist, and not a film editor!!

Below are videos 2 and 3:

When doing a floor, or anything with math, it's always better to double check your numbers.  I always use a calculator, and double check our first 2 snapped lines to ensure that they are in the center of the room.  If you are working with an assistant, as I strongly recommend, check on their work as well. Make sure you are both using the same type of ruler, marking off in the same spots. If someone has a fatter pencil, their marks and lines will be bigger and that can add up over time.  When you are drawing in your squares with your ruler and pencil, it's very important to draw light lines. They won't show up through the stain, and you always want to tape the squares off so that the pencil lines are inside the taped area. This will let the stain bury the pencil lines.

This is how our floor looks taped off, the brown squares appear larger then the white due to the tape
being on the white area. They are all equal in size.

I also wanted to mention, do not use a wet rag to wipe off your floor chalk lines. We usually just use a dry towel, or our feet.  Yep, our socks work great. We always wear socks when working on a floor, and usually have cushions with us to keep our knees and bottoms comfortable.

Another good use for your square template, is it will be used for your work surface later. We usually put our stain on top, and all our other tools and drag it on the floor.  I also forgot to mention that the square template comes in handy when you need to bend it around a door, or into a small closet where your ruler can't fit. You can hold down part of it, and trace your square. Works great!

The next 2 videos will follow shortly.

How to Paint a Checkerboard Floor, Part 1

I first started doing painted floors about six years ago. Thinking back I can't remember what floor was my first, but I remember stressing out about it.  My husband and I put rosen paper down on our driveway to practice how I could measure this out. I looked online for help and found very few directions ... maybe now its different.

I learned that you make your marks along the outside walls and snap lines. Well, I tried that. Thankfully it was a tiny hallway, because by the time I got half way down, the squares grew by an inch.

I wanted to share some helpful videos on how I measure out the room and make my squares.  Below is the first video in the series.  Please allow time for "buffering."

Keep in mind, I don't have Hollywood lighting, or a makeup artist, and I am in my studio ... it's late at night, and I am a bit forgetful. And I am also the cameraman! But hopefully this will help someone out. Oh, and it's a 5 part series ... so I will post the next part later.

Quick Notes on What you Will Need:
1. An Assistant
2. Patience
3. Measuring Tape
4. Pencils
5. Chalk Line
6. 3M Safe Release orange core tape
7. Straight razor blades
8. Illustration board or Polystyrene board

Check back for Part 2

Classic Painted Floor

Almost exactly three years ago, I painted a large floor in a foyer in a brand new constructed home.
It was absolute torture. I was 8 months pregnant, it was 95 degrees, no AC in the house. Need I say more.  Thank the dear lord I had 2 wonderful assistants to help me on the floor. Flash forward about 5 months after floor was painted. "The floor is cracking".

Uh-oh.

Well, my first thought was of course it is, they installed a floor in the hot, humid house, so the wood had expanded to bust, and now with the heat on the wood has shrunk, and the floor boards are cracking.

Makes total sense to me, and I am not a floor contractor.  This poor client has lived with the floor for 2 years, last year they wanted to re-do it, but I was again pregnant with our second baby, and said it can't be done now. After the baby. Long story short, it was just re-done this past week. Now, the floor still has large cracks, and some of them almost 1/8" thick. Seriously.  The builder and flooring installer are playing the blame game on each other. My poor client was very happy to see us back, and we tried and fill in as many cracks as we could with paint.  Paint is no miracle filler though. These cracks will more then likely re-appear.

What I love about this floor is it's scale. Two foot by two foot squares, in a deep chocolate brown and white. It just seems so classic and bold. I hope you agree!

Can you see the beautiful Gracie Wallpaper in the dining room? Next post!

Timeless.

A painted rug design

I have a wonderful client who decided to add a painted design to the already sealed floor.  The contractor had the floor guy return to buff the floor out for me.  The design changed from a solid painted rug design to an open diamond pattern with a big scroll border, and hand painted square accents.

This was really going to test my mathematical skills. The plan was to have an even amount of squares end on both sides of the rug. Too bad our shape was not a square, so therefore the squares could only end evenly on one side. Oh, and I was given free reign on their size. Hmmm, so how will I even figure this out?  Thank god the adorable contractor had this fantastic calculator that figured it all out for me!!

Hoorah!  Lets begin.  First, we taped off the border, primed, basecoated, and then glazed it.  Then we set about measuring and taping off our diamonds on the inside.  This took longer then expected. We were taping off a 1 inch band, and had to tape both sides.  That then needed to be primed, basecoated, and glazed.  It was then that the client changed the size of the border...it was already painted so we had to improvise and cut off part of our inside dimension, but add on to the outside of the border.  No problemo.


Next we laid out our scroll stencil border and began the tedious process that allows for no mistakes, and makes it easy at the same time.  Its a masking stencil, and you have to order it the size you need, so not a whole lot of room for error.  Once it was laid out, we began layering the colors, then highlighting, then shading.

It took a long time, but I think it was well worth the back pain, and the client was very happy.  That's all that really matters.