Farmhouse Floor Recipe

mmmm, sounds like some kind of recipe for muffins, drop em on the floor, scoop em up... yumm

Farmhouse Floor Recipe

prime your plywood subfloor with Kilz primer or any good primer

sand any sharp, scary sections with your little hand sander

paint with base color (powell buff/dark beige)

paint wood grain details like streaks and knots

Glaze with Faux Finish glaze tinted with Behr Revival Mahogany

Step back and do your happy dance!

The secret to that warm farmhouse wood is the base color

I used a combination of benjamin moore powell buff and benjamin moore dark beige 2165-40.  I wanted to use just the dark beige but didn't have enough so I just dumped it into the powell buff to extend it a bit.   It was about 1 qt dark beige to 2 qts powell buff.  Any nice golden neutral would probably be fine. 

The area in the closet had a lot of knots in the wood already which really added a lot of character.  In the picture above I drew lines for 6" planks with a brown colored pencil.  Those were not dark enough and didn't really show up.  All of the darker streaks I made with the paint brush came to life when the glaze was applied.  

and all of the original knots helped

The Glaze was made my slap dash measuring system...

 I dumped about 2 cups of glaze into the plastic container and threw in about 1-2 Tablespoons of the Golden Fluid Acrylics in Burnt Umber Light.  Then I threw in about 1 cup of Behr Revival Mahogany  2608-7 (The date on my can is 2006!)  They can probably still mix the color.  The finish was flat but I'm sure satin or eggshell would be fine.  Don't know about semi-gloss. 

So really it's about 2:1 ratio of glaze to paint.  I needed to mix more to do the rest of the area.  I'd mix it all at once if you need to do a larger area.   Just stick to your ratio if you need more, it's very forgiving.

That's the burnt umber...

I don't think you really need it.  The burnt umber added a reddish tint to the mix.  Here are the numbers on the Revival Mahogany can.

Colorant                    OZ      48   96

C       Yellow Oxid     0         21    0

D        Thalo Green    1         24    0

F         Red Oxide       1         10    0

I think the Sherwin Williams color Cardboard and the next darker shade on the same card would work really well too.

After mixing the glaze I brushed it on following my plank lines which you can no longer see.  I did two planks at a time, coating well with glaze.  If it seemed a little dark I stretched and pulled the glaze along with the big brush.  

I'd wipe off any excess glaze on the brush with a paper towel.   To get the hang of it do a sample on a 1 x 6 piece of pine.  You can play with your technique a bit.  It just takes a bit of letting go and playing with it as you go.  The sloppier the better.

As you can see I didn't bother taping.  I taped the second area but all of the brushing just pulled it off.  You do have to work a bit fast so the glaze doesn't dry, don't dawdle.   Also, don't overwork/rework the same area of the glaze as it's starting to dry.  This can cause it to become very splotchy in spots.  I did that in some areas although it didn't hurt the overall effect much.

It really does look like an old floor with lots of character and charm!    

I intended to put a coat of polyurethane on top but haven't yet.  The glaze is still curing and I'm not so sure I even need it.  This really exceeded my expectations.  My original plan was to just paint it white but I was really pining away (no pun intended:) for wood floors.  My wheels starting turning and I'm so glad they did!

I can't wait to finish decorating the rest of the room!