Painted Floors - Update

Remember back when I painted my floors for a second time? Well as I got ready to rent out my house last month, the final thing I did was paint my floors again. That's three times in just over a year. You might say I'm obsessed.

I've had a few e-mails and even a phone call from readers interested in knowing how the Breakthrough paint held up. Well the truth is, it held up ok. Much better than the paint job before, but still not amazingly well. The problem is not the paint but the color choice. I think when you paint floors lighter shades, it needs to be re-done frequently. 

We're also quite hard on our floors. No-one takes off their shoes (except me!), furniture gets dragged, dogs run laps. And with our big move coming up, there's been an unusual amount of wear and tear as we did repairs on the house, showed it to potential tenants, and had movers traipsing through, like this...

After all that there were some small scratches that revealed the white paint underneath and there were darker scuffs from all the shuffling of feet and furniture.  But if I hadn't been moving out and handing over the place to renters I still wouldn't have re-painted them so soon. They weren't that bad. 

This time I used yet another paint. I'm starting to think they're all the same. I had wanted to buy porch and floor paint in semi gloss but they were out of the neutral base so the guy at OSH told me the exterior wood and trim is just the same with a different label. Huh? 

This time I went with a light grey-green. I wish I'd gone a bit darker, but because of having ebony-stained floors before all this paint business, I'm scared to go too dark. It makes the place seem tiny and gloomy.

That's me in my favorite painting pants again. They're actually staring to fall apart.

The following photos should illustrate why my floors don't stay nice for long.

Box dog maze.

Box dog tunnel.

The living room just before the movers came. 

(I was also preparing for a cookbook shoot - that's what all the plates are for.)

As you can see we don't just walk on our floors. We live on our floors.

To anyone thinking of painting theirs, don't be discouraged. Regardless of the frequent re-painting needed, they still make me happy. It's a quick and cheap way to change a room dramatically and I have never regretted doing it. Best of luck!