Floor boards

MOOD BOARD

A: whitewash with knotted effect

B: Painted white

C: Bare board with knotted effect

Bare board with knotted effect (photoshopped for en masse effect)

whitewash with knotted effect (photoshopped for en masse effect)

FLOOR BOARDS

OK - so I'm waiting for the new shed to arrive before I can start on anything,

but in the meantime I have been doing some moodboards and some little samples.

The floorboards are currently wooden - I'm not sure whether they are pine or Tas Oak, but I am guessing Tas Oak. The varnish that has been put on them has made them an orangey colour.

The bathroom had tattered lino, which I ripped up to find unpolished floor boards underneath. Now having 3 boys means that the bathroom floor needs to be waterproof, so the floorboards in there will need to be eventually covered over and tiled.....

so that means that I can practise some ideas on them!!!

I had been deciding between a dark stain on the floorboards, painted white or white-wash.

After doing some reading on what other people had done I decided that the dark option was out.

As nice as it looks, it shows up EVERY single bit of dust, and being a ceramicist I often track in white dust, as well as that we currently have a dog with pale hair, and even though he will be leaving us soon (he's a Guide Dog puppy in training) I need to consider if we'll get another dog of some kind.

So onto the white floorboards vs whitewash.

I prefer the whitewash, but did a sample of both anyway.

I just used a concrete paving paint, as we already had some under the house to see what effects I could get. I painted a white strip, a watered down white strip and a strip where it was painted on and then rubbed straight off, as well as a painted strip that I then sanded back after it had dried to give a rustic effect.

I really wasn't happy with any of them....they lacked the knotty look that I like (our floorboards are nice, but don't have any knots) So I decided to try something a little different.

I went online and purchased a wood effect tool. It's a little rubber tool that you can use to give a wood effect. First you paint on the paint, then go over the paint straight away, while it's still wet with the tool. By rocking the tool back and forth you can get a knotted effect.

I did the first one straight onto a bare board, which I liked, and the second onto a whitewashed board which I liked even better.

Even though the bare board had a more noticeable effect, I liked the subtlety of the whitewash background. I took some photos and photoshopped a few boards together to see what they would look like, and I think the bare boards will look too stripey en masse, whilst the whitewashed background will look better. So now all I need to do is some practising. The good thing about this tool is if you make a mistake, because the wood is still wet, you just paint over and start again!! The downside to all this will be the time