I love our house. It is my favorite house we’ve ever lived in. However, it has one giagantic problem: a lot of linoleum. Like, so much linoleum it makes my head spin. While the obvious answer is to put tile or carpet over it (because it is in places that no linoleum should be… like the bathroom… and the hallway….) right now that is not in the budget.
So I’ve been thinking of some ways to transform it inexpensively.
I bought an IKEA rug to try and disguise the floor, and while I like the size and design (and price!) of the rug, it didn’t quite camoflauge it all as I had hoped.
Enter my favorite mode of making anything look pretty: paint!
First, I had to figure out which color to paint it. This is obviously my favorite part of the entire project. Seeing all these choices made my heart skip a beat.
We have a lot of colors in our house, but the central theme is blues, just like in the paintings I do. Especially teal. I love me some teal! A couple years ago I added mix-matched curtains in blue and teal and love them. So… teal it was!
Now, if you are doing this one thing you should know: you need to repair any cuts or rips in the linoleum first! Some cauk usually does the trick, but it depends on what you’ve got. My little floor area did not have the rips, so I could skip over this step and go right to sanding instead.
Which reminds me: Normally, my husby does not let me near the power tools. Something about being clumsy and mypersonal safety and blah blah blah but this time I got to use the sander!
I gave the floor a rough sand. As you can see, it is a small area! So it went really fast. After sanding, I vaccuumed up the debris and then cleaned the floor. Then, I placed a fan there to dry it quicker. In the meantime, I got my primer coat ready. I used regular old wall primer in white.
I just freehand the painting when I’m near the edge, I don’t tape off. But if you feel more comfortable you totally can. It makes painting go quicker when you do. I’m comfortable cutting in just by winging it.
The hardest part about this whole project was keeping the puppy away from the paint.
After the primer (which I thought covered really well with just one coat) I added the paint. I used floor paint for this, which was specifically formulated to cover floors. It’s designed for all the wear and tear that a floor gets.
I let it dry, then added a second coat. And viola! Teal floor! And it looks so much better than the original linoleum.
After this I wanted to add a pattern of some sort to the top, but I also wanted to do a small wall mural on that half wall attached to the foyer area. After completing the mural I’m glad I waited. I like the combination of the wall mural and floor.
