So the end has finally come. Above is our empty living room and also a close up of the tone and opacity of wash we achieved with Porters Paints Wood Wash. I am absolutely thrilled! Click here and here and here and here to see the progress, or just search within my blog for floor sanding. If you are thinking about doing this yourself here are my top 5 tips for white washing your floors yourself.
Im sure you will be seeing more of these floors in up coming posts!
- Make sure you have appropriate time allocated in your calendar to do this. It is no weekender job. Things always ‘pop up’, work, social etc which will extend your allocated time line. If you are doing your entire house pack things up as though you are moving house and prepare for ultimate discomfort. Pack a suitcase for your work clothes, so it is easy to get dressed and go to work like a normal person. I would also have a couple of frozen meals in the freezer too. No one will feel like cooking.
- Good Sanding Preparation is vital; I hired a professional floor sander and edger, and I also used an orbital sander and a mouse to get into the tricky little corners. Also, don’t be tight on the sanding belts and pads, buy up big in grits of 60, 80 and 120′s, you can always return them if you don’t use them. Nothing worse than running out on a Saturday afternoon when you have hired a piece of machinery and the hardware store is closed….. (yes, that did happen to me)
- Humidity plays a large part in the opacity of the wood wash. Obviously Queensland is very humid and I had to adjust my coats accordingly. If you think the paint is a little thick, then just add water, if you add too much water, add a bit more paint. I found I had to work fast with this product as my wood was very thirsty.
- The application itself is more like french polishing, not so much as the instructions infer ‘wiping off excess’. I found I would wipe off excess, though at the same time be rubbing the product into the grain and blending the brush strokes out with muslin. Always use muslin and go plank by plank.
- As I mentioned in one of my previous posts I was concerned about lines that had become apparent in my application. My application (two to three coats in places) also appeared a ‘little dust like’ sounds weird though that is the only way to describe it. All of these concerns disappeared as soon as the first coat of Porter’s Clearcote was applied. The Clearcote seems to settle the wood wash and enhance the visibility of the grain. We applied three coats of this.
Good Luck, email me if you want to!
