Since moving into our house last August, I’ve been planning so many projects and DIYs to try and update our home on a budget. My current work-in-progress is our ensuite bathroom which I’ve been slowly working away at month-by-month. I originally made a post with my design plans which you can read about here, and more recently I painted the vanity and countertop with you can read about here. Although I have made some changes along the way, my bathroom is slowly becoming closer to my vision of being more modern and updated – with of course staying on a budget!
My most recent update of painting and stenciling my floor was something I was very nervous to do, but now that I’m finished, I am so happy with the results! I have seen so many blog posts and Instragam photos of others stenciling their bathroom floors. I was instantly inspired! So let me show you how I did it!
Here is a list of everything I used:
- UMA Paint (a very strong primer). I purchased mine at my local Dulux paint store. I’ve also used this primer on my vanity update which you can read about here.
- Floor Enamel in the colour Flagstone. I also purchased this at my local Dulux paint store.
- Eggshell Interior Acrylic Paint in the colour White. Also from Dulux paint store. (Shout out to Dulux if you’d like to sponsor me!).
- Polycrylic.
- A stencil. I got my stencil in the Vicenta Spanish style from this Etsy seller. I had such a hard time finding one that was the right size (9″x9″). I’ve seen a lot of bloggers/instagramers using stencils from Cutting Edge Stencils. Although I cannot speak to their product since they didn’t have my size, from what I have seen, their product appears to be favoured by many.
- Paint tray.
- Small foam roller brush. I really liked this one from Canadian Tire as it’s a high density foam roller. Plus it comes with a tray.
- Paint brush to cut in the floor edges.
- Foam brush to apply the Polycrylic.
- Small painters brush for touch-ups.
- Paper plate to remove excess paint from your roller brush.
- Painters tape.
- TSP. I like this one in the spray bottle.
- Medium-grit sandpaper.
Here’s a reminder of what my bathroom floor looked like before….
It honestly was not horrible, but it really clashed with the rest of the bathroom, especially when I painted my vanity and countertop.
Now that you’ve seen the before, let’s jump into what I did to transform my floor!
First. The first thing I did to get ready to paint my floor was prep it! I used some TSP and sprayed it on the floor and let it sit for a few minutes. I cleaned it off with some soapy water and a rag. Once I did that, I then went over the flooring with 220-grit sandpaper to scuff it up a bit. Once that was done, I then wiped the floor off again to remove any of the dust from the sanding. Lastly, I taped off the sides of the room with some painters tape.
P.S. Make sure you give your toilet a good clean ahead of time. You’ll be practically sticking your nose right in there to stencil the floor around it.
Second. Once the floor was prepped, I applied three coats of the UMA primer, using a foam roller brush.
Third. Once the primer was dry, I then went in with my floor paint in Flagstone. I did two coats of this, again applying with a roller brush.
Side note: I’ve seen a lot of bloggers/instagramers use Fusion Mineral Paint or Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to paint their floors. While I do enjoy FMP, and have used it on multiple projects, I would be very hesitant to use it on my floors. I just don’t feel that it would withstand the wear and tear of everyday use. In fact, I’ve come across blog posts where bloggers provide updates and share how over time the paint started to peel. (If I find these again, I will post them here). Also the sales associate at my local Dulux was already skeptical of me wanting to paint my vinyl flooring (I don’t blame her… I was skeptical of myself too) and recommended not to use FMP as it would not hold up, and suggested the floor lacquer instead. Although it was more expensive and more paint that what I needed, I felt that it would be better to get a higher quality product that’s meant for floors and have less risk of it peeling.
Fourth. Time to stencil! There is definitely is an art to stenciling. The biggest thing to remember is less is more! Once you roll your brush in the paint, you’ll want to remove as much excess as possible. Even if you think you took a lot off, try rolling it again. I used a small paper plate to roll my brush on before applying it to the stencil. You want to apply as little as possible at a time to prevent bleed through. If you do get bleed through, don’t stress – it’s easy enough to clean up with a small brush when it’s dry. It also helps if you wash your stencil off each time after using it. I’m not going to lie, I stopped doing this half way through cause I was too impatient.
Line the stencil up with your tile. Start in the center of your flooring, as this will be the easiest, and apply the paint over the stencil to every-other tile. This will allow your paint to dry fully before applying paint to the tile next to it. To keep things completely real, there were a few times that I didn’t line up the stencil to the right square and totally messed up. If you do this, don’t worry, as it was easy enough to paint over and re-do.
When you’re all done with this, go back and fill in the rest of the tiles. I actually kind of liked how this looked and was tempted to keep it like this…
Fifth. Now the tricky part – stenciling the non-square tiles. This was the hardest part by far. I tried my best to just bend the stencil to apply the paint, which for the larger areas seemed to work okay.
For the smaller areas I ended up cutting the stencil to the appropriate size. I was a bit scared to do this, but figured it was the only way to get into those odd nooks and crannies. Start with the largest tile that is not a whole tile and cut your tile as you work your way to the smaller pieces.
After all of the floor was stenciled I went in with my little artist brush to touch up any lines that didn’t connect and fix any bleed-through. If you really look at the floor, the lines are not all crisp and perfect. But hey, I’m okay with it and I figure who really is going to get that close to see all the imperfections anyway?
Sixth. Once the paint was all dry, I topped it off with three coats of Polycrylic, allowing two hours of drying time in between. Make sure to give a good sweeping before this step to remove all the little dust and hairs! I had to brush them out the way as I went along to avoid them getting stuck underneath the Polycrylic.
Okay and now for the final results!!!
Okay and one last before and after!
I’m really happy with the final results. As time consuming as it was, I think the payoff was worth it. Is it perfect? Heck no. I can point out so many little flaws in the floor, but even with all the little imperfections, I think it’s a big improvement. And when you look at it as a whole, I think it looks pretty darn good. The true test is if it will hold up over time. Eventually I do plan to renovate this bathroom, but I figure until then my DIYs and stenciled floor will do for now.
What’s next? Check out my other blog post with my design plans which includes a fresh coat of paint, a new light fixture and some DIY’ed towel rods. So stay tuned!!
If you liked my post, pin the image below!
xoxo,
Amy
Thank you for the thorough step by step tutorial. It turned out great!
You’re so welcome!