In July I found a great seven acre farm with a workshop and a tiny house. The tiny house was the first project I tackled! It is by no means a tiny house I would have designed for myself, but I was not about to complain about a free tiny house next to my workshop. I knew it would make the perfect design studio for client meetings.
The first project I tackled was the floor. The floor was basic pine sub-floor that some one had dumped a horrible red stain on. Every surface in the house was either pine or cedar, so I decided to lighten the space by painting the floor white.
The farm reminds me of home in the Midwest. I decided the overall design aesthetic I wanted for the tiny house was Midwest Modern Rustic. I am not sure if that is a thing…well, it is now!
This is what the tiny house looked like on the inside before I started renovations.
I got to work on prepping the stained pine floor for paint. As you can see it was pretty dirty. Since I was going for a Rustic Midwest look and feel, I simply swept. By leaving the floors a bit dirty, the white coat would not fully adhere. It would help me achieve the lived in look I was going for.
You can see the coat of horrible stain was applied in a very hap-hazard manner by the previous owners.
I quickly applied a coat of White Behr Floor Paint. Since I would be sanding the majority of the white paint off, I was not too Type A on this part of the process.
Now came the fun part…well, fun in the sense that I got to use my favorite Festool sander! My garden foam knee pad made it bearable. That, and the fact that the floor space was around 200 square feet!
Once the floor was sanded I waited about two weeks to apply the polyurethane. I wanted to beat the floor up as much I as could to further age the white top coat.
After two weeks of walking on the floor I applied 3-4 coats of water-based poly. Mainly, because I had several gallons in my shop and it dries fast. I have been using the floor daily for five months and have had no problems!
I could not be happier with the end results. It is always the first thing that people comment on when they walk in.
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