Poor Man's Terracotta Tile - No More!

15 years ago we bought a house that was in very poor shape.  It had been a rental home for the previous 15 years to various types of renters, including college students!  

We had 10 days to remodel a bathroom, replace every door, paint the entire house, refinish the floors, and have some structural work done in the crawl space.  When the contractors removed the awful laminate in the kitchen, it revealed a sub floor of pine.  We had it sanded, but it was not salvageable...too many dark, black stains.  Our budget was stretched thin and there were no dollars to lay new hardwood floors.  

I had always longed for a terracotta tile floor in the kitchen!  Remember, this was in 1999 and I loved the look of a rustic Country French kitchen, with tile floors and Pierre Deux fabrics on the chairs and windows.  I'll paint it!  After some planning, and 60 hours of back breaking work, I had my poor man's version of a terracotta tile floor!

I painted the entire floor in a Benjamin Moore Porch and Floor paint...in a medium shade of tan.  This undercoat was to be the color or my 'grout' lines.

I taped off the squares with a 1/4" masking tape.  With a sponge, cheesecloth and 3 different shades of orange glazes, I began the faux finishing stage.  

I added two coats of a water based poly for protection.  This was to be a temporary solution to hold us over until we had the funds to install a new hardwood floor.

15 years later, I finally got my hardwood floors!  I must say the "faux" floors held up quite well.  

This is the most trafficked area of the kitchen.  You can see the raise of the grain of the wood starting to peak through...

Here's a close up of that area:

Now that's patina!  Ha!

The new floors went in this week.  I'll be repainting the kitchen cabinets within the next few weeks (hopefully) and will have some glamour shots of the completed project.

In the meantime, we are a family of four...my children were 12 & 10 when we moved into this house.  The floor held up much better than I ever imagined.  So if you are in need of a 'quick' fix, paint and poly will surely get you over the hump until you are ready for your dream floors!

Thanks for stopping by!

Robin

Linking up at:

Finding Silver Pennies