Tips for painting concrete and wood floors
The finishing touch is the most important step in creating or updating an interior. Properly completed final work can emphasize high decorative and high-quality indicators or reduce to zero all previously made efforts. The last stage of repair and finishing of housing in a new building is floor painting, which requires careful preparation, the right choice of paint composition and compliance with technology.
Content
- Cleaning before painting
- Paint the concrete floor
- Surface preparation specifics
- Concrete painting rule
Most often, owners of apartments, garages, cottages, country estates need to paint concrete or wooden floors. Fundamentally similar processes for painting concrete and wooden surfaces still have a number of differences. Equally important is the degree of floor wear, the presence of defects, bumps, cracks. Their repair and elimination in the presence of wooden and concrete floors is carried out using various methods and means..
Compounds intended for repairing floors before painting and for subsequent finishing are selected taking into account the upcoming operating conditions. The selection of all consumables is focused on the specific qualities of the material of which the floor is made..
Correctly painted floor – the finishing touch in the interior composition
Cleaning before painting
There are processes whose implementation is necessary only before painting a concrete surface, since a floor coated with chipboard, plywood, boards or fiberboard simply does not need them. However, regardless of what the floor was made of, before its painting, thorough cleaning and cleaning, removal of furniture and all unnecessary items from the premises is mandatory. They wash the floors very carefully, use a brush to remove dust and dirt.
On the floor there should be no grains of sand, animal hair, hair, because after applying paint they will “permanently” fix on the surface, and will spoil the impression until the next repair.
Before it takes place concrete floor painting or wood flooring, it will be necessary to wash off contaminants made by substances containing fat, machine oil, and household oil. If the floors were waxed in water, you need to add soda to wash them. Oils and fats prevent high-quality staining, interfere with the normal adhesion of paint components to concrete and lumber. Greasy and oil stains from the wooden floor are removed by elementary washing using washing powder, which is quite applicable for minor contamination of the concrete floor. Oil and grease penetrated deep into a porous concrete surface are much more difficult to wash. Sometimes compressor units are required to flush oily particles to the surface.
Cement glue, peeling old paint, damaged layer of varnish are removed by sandblasting equipment. To clean the surface of old paints and varnishes, you can use quick-drying gels designed specifically for this operation.
Paint the concrete floor
To clean the concrete surface before painting, use a steel brush. With its help, they remove not only dirt, dust and construction debris, but also remove the weak top layer – the fragile “concrete milk”. It is obtained as a result of the deposition of heavy large particles of concrete in the lower layers of the screed during the hardening period..
Surface preparation specifics
- The unstable top layer is not able to adequately resist the load, so it is removed or “cut off” with special grinding equipment. Grinders will be needed to prepare a heavily worn concrete surface with potholes and chips..
- Cavities and microcracks that appeared and appeared during the preparation period should be repaired with putties intended for repairing concrete floors. In order to strengthen the porous surface and increase adhesion with paint, a primer is applied to the concrete floor.
- After removing the damaged top layer and eliminating defects, a concrete or polymer screed is most often made, on top of which the paint will lie perfectly.
- So that the concrete floor is not dusted, it is treated with a stabilizing solution.
- A primer is applied to increase the adhesion of concrete with a coloring composition..
Two / three coats of paint are usually applied to concrete floors.
Concrete painting rule
Concrete floors are painted in two / three steps, between which the floor must dry as long as specified by the manufacturer..
Often, the final stage of work is painting the floor with varnish, which serves as a decorative and protective coating.
How to paint a wooden floor
- It is necessary to begin preparation with a thorough inspection of a wooden surface. The protruding hats of fixing nails, loose boards, knots, panels need to be nailed, brought to perfect condition.
- The remains of paints and varnishes from a wooden floor are removed with a spatula.
- Carefully removes debris and accumulated dust from the cracks between the planks, boards, panels. Large gaps resulting from drying out of wood are sealed with putty.
The wooden surface is treated with warm drying oil, which is treated with a wood flooring regardless of condition and age..
- After applying the drying oil, the wooden floor is puttied twice.
- To create a perfect geometric plane of the newly laid wooden floor, grinding is carried out.
- After removing debris and dust that has appeared during operation, the drying oil is applied to the floor again.
Upon completion of the full cycle of preparatory operations, painting of the wooden floor can be started. They start painting the floor from one of the skirting boards, which is best done with a small brush. You can evenly apply paint to large areas in the middle of the room with a roller, it will optimally distribute the coloring composition.
The peripheral areas of wooden floors are painted with a small brush
Usually, in order to exclude weakly stained segments and the appearance of peculiar stains, the wooden floor is painted twice. It is desirable that the coloring composition for applying the first layer has a thicker consistency.
The paint for performing the top coat is diluted with solvents compatible with the product used. Manufacturers often indicate information about them on the bank. After the floor has dried, it is washed with hot water..
Useful Tips for Home Masters
- A dry floor is one of the main conditions for the long-term service of the applied paint, as well as the complete expectation of drying of each of the soil and paint layers. The humidity level of the concrete floor is very simple to check in a handicraft way. A piece of plastic film with an approximate size of 1 m? Is tightly applied to the surface of the floor prepared for painting, it is tightly fixed with adhesive tape. If accumulated moisture appears under the film in a day, the floor is not sufficiently prepared for staining. The increase in the percentage of moisture will speed up the process of increasing air temperature.
- To protect the walls and built-in furniture from paint, it is better to seal parts located close to the floor surface with adhesive tape.
- The paint must be periodically stirred to achieve a uniform consistency. It is best mixed with a construction mixer. An excessively thick composition must be diluted with a solvent specified by the paint manufacturer..
Choosing floor paint
Consumables for dyeing are selected in accordance with the operational specifications..
- to finish the floor of garages, outbuildings, concrete landscape elements, use means designed for painting industrial premises, they are based on solvents and epoxies;
- for coloring the floor in housing, preference should be given to compositions made on a water basis;
- corridors of institutions, floors in offices, on balconies are covered with two-component polyurethane elastomers;
- if necessary, ensure the elasticity and water resistance of the coating using one-component polyurethane dyes.
The original solution for painting a wooden floor
Water-acrylic, oil, alkyd paints are used to paint wood floors. There are many options for coloring compounds, the manufacturer’s information on the possibility of processing a particular type of wood and the compatibility of the composition with the existing coating will help to choose the most suitable product.
The consistent implementation of all stages of preparing the surface for painting, observing the manufacturer’s recommendations and the tips given in the article will provide painted wood and concrete floors with a decorative appeal and maximum service life..
