Hello everyone! I found this forum on Google because I am in need of some home improvement advice. I'm going to tell the whole story here, and forgive me if it's more info than you need. I'm unexperienced at all this so I don't know what folks would need to know, plus I have been talking to others about this problem and find that it's difficult to make them understand without describing my unique living space in detail.
Okay, the building I live in is a cotton gin warehouse built in 1888. It is NOT renovated. Someone literally just put sheetrock walls up and rents the spaces out to artists. I LOVE this place! But the problem I want advice for here is that I'm sick and tired of my floor. The wooden floor is literally the same wood that was installed 120 years ago. It's extremely porous and soaks up any liquid that falls on it immediately, and it takes weeks to get the smell of dog pee out when my dog has an accident. It's also covered in dark ugly stains from a century of spills. The color is awful, it just feels like it's sucking the life out of my studio.
I have looked into the options of installing flooring on top of it, like carpet or vinyl, and sanding and refinishing. I think carpet is ugly and I'd ruin it quickly anyway, and to put vinyl down I learned we'd have to cement over the wood to make it level and whatnot, and I don't want to put that much money and energy into a place I'm just renting. Sanding and refinishing would require renting a sander and moving literally every single thing I own in the time I rented the sander. I just don't have the capacity to do that. The only way this project will get done is if I work on it a little at a time.
So the conclusion that I came to is that I will paint the floor white. With the ancient wood, painting over it gives it a rough, weathered look that I REALLY like. I know painting a floor is untraditional, but I'm an artist and this is an art studio, and it is *definitely* far from a traditional living space. It's never going to be fancy or totally clean or anything like a "normal" apartment, and I like it that way.
But here arises my problem. I have no idea what kind of paint to use and if I need to do anything to the wood before I paint it. I swept, vacuumed, and Lysoled a 3 square foot section and then painted it with white primer, but when it dries it gets a yellow/brownish tint. Why does it tint like this?
What I want to achieve is an imperfect-looking but liquid resistant white surface, so when I step on it my feet don't feel gritty, and when the dog has an accident or I drop some juice, I'm not smelling it for the next 6 months.
What sort of products do I need to use to achieve this effect?
Okay, the building I live in is a cotton gin warehouse built in 1888. It is NOT renovated. Someone literally just put sheetrock walls up and rents the spaces out to artists. I LOVE this place! But the problem I want advice for here is that I'm sick and tired of my floor. The wooden floor is literally the same wood that was installed 120 years ago. It's extremely porous and soaks up any liquid that falls on it immediately, and it takes weeks to get the smell of dog pee out when my dog has an accident. It's also covered in dark ugly stains from a century of spills. The color is awful, it just feels like it's sucking the life out of my studio.
I have looked into the options of installing flooring on top of it, like carpet or vinyl, and sanding and refinishing. I think carpet is ugly and I'd ruin it quickly anyway, and to put vinyl down I learned we'd have to cement over the wood to make it level and whatnot, and I don't want to put that much money and energy into a place I'm just renting. Sanding and refinishing would require renting a sander and moving literally every single thing I own in the time I rented the sander. I just don't have the capacity to do that. The only way this project will get done is if I work on it a little at a time.
So the conclusion that I came to is that I will paint the floor white. With the ancient wood, painting over it gives it a rough, weathered look that I REALLY like. I know painting a floor is untraditional, but I'm an artist and this is an art studio, and it is *definitely* far from a traditional living space. It's never going to be fancy or totally clean or anything like a "normal" apartment, and I like it that way.
But here arises my problem. I have no idea what kind of paint to use and if I need to do anything to the wood before I paint it. I swept, vacuumed, and Lysoled a 3 square foot section and then painted it with white primer, but when it dries it gets a yellow/brownish tint. Why does it tint like this?
What I want to achieve is an imperfect-looking but liquid resistant white surface, so when I step on it my feet don't feel gritty, and when the dog has an accident or I drop some juice, I'm not smelling it for the next 6 months.
What sort of products do I need to use to achieve this effect?