Floor one coming to a close...

This upstairs hallway floor is another never ending project. Man, we have way too many of them here! This was first painted way back in the spring. Those two coats lightened things up and made it feel much cleaner, and made me feel like it was more welcoming to guests. It is photographed on the left with wet Polycrylic finish on the floor.

Since the spring I have been trying to get this operation wrapped up. This floor has some very unique peculiarities, not present in most homes. First of all the floor is wavy, if you put a marble on this floor it would be off and running, powered by inertia. There are two glops of some sort of compound that was used to patch some holes in the floor. It has one roughly square patch of flake-board where flooring boards were removed and repaired but noy to match the rest of the floor.  That is a repulsive aesthetic addition to the whole....it has got to go. That flake-board alone has been a major road block on this project since the get go. Mr promises to fix it, but lets be honest, he has enough to do, even though this would make a big difference in the appearance of this place. Anything that makes this place look and feel better is my goal, so I have found this situation very frustrating.

I finally decided this floor had to be painted and poly coated right over the glops and flake-board. If not done that way, the costs would rise and it would look just as horrendous for an extended amount of time. That time frame is just not acceptable. So, painted and finished "ooops" is the solution. It has been done. This is a picture of the floor while still wet with polycrylic top coat. It is looking damn good. It made the color a bit softer and darker, but not dark. I chose a satin finish and I like its softness.

Previously I had a glossy finish put on the stairs, and it looked fine, but I like this sooo much better. I might also add that the paint manufacturer, Valspar, told me on a phone query that I should not put the Minwax Polycrylic over the Valspar. They said it was not needed. Though I was infinitely careful I found the floor paint was very volnerible to scraping off the floor with only a slight abrasion. Any paint needs to cure for a month before it can be washed or take any abrasion, but I am talking about a time frame a lot longer than a month. On the staircase where I had applied the Polycrylic before speaking to the manufacturer, the poly finish was holding up well...and that is on the main staircase of the house. So I made an executive decision and put  Polycrylic on the floor.  Only living with it is going to indicate if it was a good decision, but I suspect it is. It looks great, and it will make cleaning the floor easier. If it becomes a distressed floor, so be it. That would be more attractive than the appearance of this floor before starting this paint job. Now, there is a whole house that needs the same treatment. This is still going to be a long long project.