floor with flourish

Use a French wash effect and a simple pattern to beautify your floor.

Flooring - French wash effect
Finished Flooring

You will need:

Resene Paint Effects Medium (ask your Resene ColorShop for the right quantity for your area of floor)
One testpot each of Resene White and Resene Gunsmoke
One wide paintbrush (depending on width of your boards)
One testpot brush
Masking tape
Craft knife
Small wallpaper roller
Empty tin and stirrer
Sanding block and 220-grit sandpaper (optional)
Resene Qristal ClearFloor urethane

How to create a French wash effect and pattern:

Step 1:
Mix the Resene White testpot with the Resene Paint Effects Medium. We used one testpot to 250ml of the medium but this will depend on the look and transparency level you want, and the type of flooring you have. Test a spare board if you have one, or inside a cupboard. Wait until the test patch is fully dry before deciding (it will look quite solid as you paint, but dry more transparent). Brush the floor, one board at a time (not in patches) with the paint/medium mixture. Use long sweeping strokes. Leave to dry fully. You can also use a Speedbrush pad (125mm or 175mm) on a pole.

Step 2:
Let your board width be your guide when it comes to diamond dimension. Using a ratio of double the length to the width, ours are 190mm long by 95mm wide, while the side stripes are 20mm. Mask up the stripes, then mask the diamonds, using the technique shown where one strip of tape outlines the sides of two diamonds. Trim the ends of the tape, and use a wallpaper roller to make sure the tape is firm, so that the paint will not bleed underneath. For extra protection run your fingernail or the end of a pencil along the edges.

Step 3:
Mix the Resene Gunsmoke testpot with more Resene Paint Effects Medium, and paint the stripes then the diamonds using the small brush, being careful to stay between the lines (don’t overload the brush). We chose to use just the central diamonds, but you might like to also paint the half-diamonds left by the masking tape. When almost dry, carefully remove the masking tape. At this stage you can distress the floor more by lightly sanding the paint, or some areas of the paint. Then to protect your wonderful paint job, apply three coats of Resene Qristal ClearFloor urethane.

Top tip

Instead of using Resene Paint Effects Medium, you might like to use Resene Waterborne Colorwood Rock Salt for the background and Resene Waterborne Colorwood Raincloud for the diamonds. You can then cover this with two to three coats of Resene Qristal ClearFloor tinted with white, which must be applied by brush. Each coat will increase the whiteness, so you can choose to use just Resene Qristal ClearFloor untinted once you have achieved the desired whiteness.

crafted by: Philippe Morin
pictures: Tony Brownjohn

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winter 2011

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