Oh this project has really ignited a fire in me. Apparently, I really respond to the combination of low risk + complete creative freedom in a bonus room that doesn’t have the normal functional or storage needs, ha. And while I had help (shout out to Gretchen and Emily M) spending the work week on the floor here (while the mural on the outside was painted) was so much fun. As a reminder this room is 1/2 of the barn (the animals are in the other half) and could serve as a flex space – a creative space for the kids for crafting playdates but also an office for us for calls or writing time after the kids get home from school (turns out that gorgeous open-to-the-rest-of-the-house sunroom has zero privacy). I’ll explain more about the function of it on the full reveal (coming soon) but today we are talking floor.
As a reminder, this is what the barn looked like when we first bought the property. So much potential and so many spiders and dirt. Brian and I obviously had no idea what we would need this for (and we obviously don’t NEED this room), but I knew from day one that I would have fun in here, creatively. I loved that it was wood and almost kept it that way, but after one summer of the kids out here, it just felt super gross.
So we paneled the walls in builder grade pine, trimmed out the windows and while we loved it, the floor felt unfinished and like it could be a missed opportunity.
We had our contractor sand down the original floors and replace a few boards, too but it was rough and pink and orange and I didn’t love it. It looked way less finished in person (the photos make it look good, TBH).
If you’ve been following along this art barn journey, you might’ve seen the post with Gretchen’s mock-ups where we explored a few pattern options. I was pretty set on a harlequin/checkerboard pattern from the jump and was excited to see that it was still my favorite option after a round of designs. BTW I’m unsure if this is harlequin because usually those are more elongated, so basically these are squares turned on an angle.
In a case of divine timing, as we were about to start this project, a Lowe’s partnership came through and we were more than happy to work with them to gather all our materials because we would have anyway (head to social to see the reel! For this project, we needed a boat load of tape (I think we went through five rolls, at least). I was going back and forth between using paint or a white stain (yes, that’s a thing!) for the pattern. We went with a white solid color stain from Minwax and I’m glad we did. It was super easy to work with and gave me the look I was going for. We also used the Minwax Polycrylic clear coat in satin when we were done with the pattern to give it a good protection layer, and it’s supposedly the best finishing coat to use if you want the least amount of yellowing. It did darken the wood a bit, to be expected, but I still love how it turned out. We used brushes for the stain and rollers for the clear coat.
Once we had all the tools, we got to work figuring out the geometry of the design and the easiest way to mask it off. Luckily, we had a stack of craft paper for the kids that turned out to be a 12?x12? square and was sort of essential to the pattern turning out as consistent as it did. We used a measuring tape, a chalk line, and a laser level to double check our work, but ultimately, without the paper as a template this would have taken a lot longer with potentially more mistakes.
We started in the dead center of the room and worked our pattern outwards from there, first lining up six paper squares across the room and gently taping them to the floor with little tape rolls underneath. Then, one by one we outlined the edges of the squares with tape, butting it right up to the edge of the paper with just a small bit of tape overlapping the corners. We went row by row, making sure the paper corners touched and lined up perfectly, then going back through to outline in tape.
Eventually, these tape outlines formed smaller squares in between–these being the areas of the floor we would leave original wood. We marked these wood squares with a little piece of tape in the center so we wouldn’t be confused when staining. Once the entire floor pattern was taped off, we went back through and peeled up the paper, using a retractable knife to free the taped down corners, making sure to cut slow and straight, as these would need to be the sharp corners for the white stain.
As we mapped out the pattern, we knew we were going to run into some math problems. Before we decided to move forward with the template, we debated about using the planks as a guide, matching up the checkers to the plank’s edges. But this floor is old and unevenly spaced, making that a logistical nightmare. I’m so glad we overlapped the pattern across the boards as if they were solid. I think it makes the space feel more charming and handmade.
But even with the squares, we had to make a decision about where and how they would end. No matter what, the checkers would be truncated at the walls, since we chose to start from the center of the room and work outwards. I think this would’ve looked just fine, but from the beginning I felt like adding a sweet border to the design would just complete the room and drive home the whimsy.
All this to say, we taped off the checkerboard pattern first, leaving about 5? from each wall bare so we could later add in our border. There was roughly 5? of blank space on either side of our initial row of six paper squares. We liked this width so we let it dictate the front and back wall border spacing, too. Of course, the math didn’t work out so easily length wise, meaning we had to slice our last two rows of squares into triangles on either side.
Once the first round of tape was down and each square was removed, it was time to paint–or rather, stain. We’d picked up two cans of the Minwax solid color stain because we weren’t sure which white was going to be the right white. In the corner of the room that I had planned to put down a sectional, we tested the two cans. Simply White on the left, Pure White on the right, and a mix of what was left on both paint brushes in the middle. You’d think with a name like Pure White it would be the brighter, more cooler toned of the two. But confusingly, Simply White was the brightest in the bunch and the color we ended up choosing. I think we went through 2, maybe 3, smaller quart cans to complete the floor.
Working from the back of the room to the front, we painted each larger square Simply White, working the product in the direction of the grain. One coat looked great! It dried fairly fast and you could see the wood grain coming through nicely. But it felt a little unfinished, almost like it was a primer.
My sweet Bird came home from school just DYING to help us finish the floor. She was pretty bummed to see the first coat of stain went down without her help and begged me to do a second coat with her. Which ended up being the perfect solution. She was able to participate and the second coat really made everything feel more finished.
After both checkerboard coats went down and dried, we went back through to tape off the border. I wavered slightly on whether it should be a stripe or a solid or a stripe with a solid thin line at the bottom. We decided on the stripe-only first, telling ourselves we could always add in a thin base stripe where it would meet the checkers, or paint the entire 5? solid if the stripe felt like too much. Thankfully, it did not, and we ended up leaving it stripe only.
We spaced out the lines just using the 2? tape we had on hand, again working out from the middle, lining up tape pieces right next to each other and pulling up every other one to reveal our stain zone. When we got to the corners of the room, we had to fudge the spacing a little to get our full stripe widths, so toward the end, some of the stain stripes are more like 2 1/4?. We opted not to turn the corner and combine the stripes fluidly, but rather the back and front walls stretch into the wall and the side wall stripes stop at the base of those front and back borders.
We gave the stripes two coats of stain and waited a few hours for it to dry, just in time for school to let out and our little volunteers came running. They were so excited to peel tape and reveal the floor. It was a family affair getting this tape up, with all four of us working on hands and knees to peel it, while Gretchen time-lapsed the whole thing. Charlie had fun making a hugeeee tape ball and launching it at Brian.
So the staining is done–PHEW–and now we had to decide whether or not it was worth it to give it a poly coating. I loveddd how it was looking with the raw pine and was sort of tempted to just leave it at that for fear that the clear finish would change the tone of the wood too much. But I knew that’d be asking for a dirt disaster knowing where this barn is (literally surrounded by dirt which turns to mud in about a month). Adding a clear coat would lock everything in and make wiping up muddy foot prints doable. The last thing I wanted was for our hard work to get ruined by inevitable farm filth.
You can see here that the poly finish just deepened the existing tone instead of yellowing it, which I was so pleased with. I think the slight contrast really helps the floor pop off from the all wood walls, without looking too different. We went with a satin coat but debated on matte. The slight sheen of the satin is actually really pretty and just makes it feel more complete.
I gave the floor two coats of poly using a tall roller brush. It was fast and easy. I did go through and use a regular brush to better apply the clear coat into the corners where the wall met the floor. Hot Tip: before you start your clear coat, put down a layer of “baseboard tape” to protect the unfinished wood walls (in our case) from getting excess poly on them. This way we could be a little more fast and loose with the application.
This is how it was looking when all was said and done. How cool is this bird’s eye view?? I couldn’t be more happy with how it turned out. The tape peel left us with nice, sharp lines and the two coats of stain feel like just the right amount. The wood qualities come through and the color is just more striking than if we had left it at one (and I don’t think it’s going to chip as easily since its more penetrated into the wood).
If you are thinking that it reminds you of the sunroom you are NOT WRONG. And if you are wondering why we stayed safe with white it’s because we have a lot of color coming in with the quilts and small sectional. Y’all I’m PLEASED AS PUNCH and can not WAIT to finish this space. We shoot it this week so more to come asap. xx