DIY: Faux Hardwood Floors

Two years ago I posted about my studio basement. After being pregnant, moving my invitation and design materials down into the basement from the spare bedroom to make room for the nursery, and having a baby, we finally got around to finishing the basement floors! You will see from the before photos that the floors were a dingy gray with paint splatters. I looked all over the Internet and Pinterest for inspiration and found something that caught my eye. I stumbled upon this cement floor painted to look like dark hardwood floors from TwentySixFiftyEight.

Our house was built in 1930 so the basement floor is very uneven and we wanted to do a paint technique that covered up the flaws of the floor. It is so uneven that another type of floor covering wouldn't work. We decided tot try the technique from above but with lighter brown colors. On a Friday night in January, Gino and I rolled up our sleeves when Luke went to bed, got some Corona Lights, and got down to floor painting business! It took us about 4 hours to complete and it really wasn't as hard as we expected. I am so happy with the results and we now have a clean, organized basement that we can actually spend some time working in. There are a lot of additional things to finish like covering the area under the stairs, repainting the stairs, touching up the walls, painting the celling, finishing the top shelf above the desk, and more random finishing touches. For now, we are very pleased with the outcome and it was just under $80 for the whole project. 

Here is the cost breakdown and step-by-step instructions. 

Tools

• 2 Cans Valspar Latex Floor & Porch Satin Paint (2 colors, dark & light) = 2@$25.98
• Purdy Wall Weaver Brush = @$12.48 
• 6" Stucco Decks & Masonry Paint Roller = $5.28

Total = $69.72 + tax

You will notice a Graining Tool in the picture above and we got the idea to use this tool from the blog inspiration in the beginning of the post but it DID NOT WORK! I was a little disappointed but I think the Purdy Wall Weaver Brush actually create a better effect in the end. It might work on a very smooth and flat surface but this tool didn't work at all on our floor. 

Step 1: 

•  Clean the floor thoroughly. We swept a few times because our basement is very dusty from underneath the house.
• Some floors may need sanding or priming but we were going for a naturally flawed effect and didn't mind if any of the gray floor showed through so we didn't do any other prep work. 

Step 2:

• Start in one corner of the room and roll a 6" wide "plank" with the darker base color to the desired length. We made all our "planks" different lengths so that we had flexibility and so that the floor looked a little more organic and rustic. The reason we used a thick nap stucco roller was so that the paint would get into all the little cracks and crevasses on our floor. If you have a smooth floor, any roller would do.

Step 3: 

• Dip the 6" Purdy Wall Weaver Brush lightly in the lighter color paint and gently brush the top of the "plank" blending the colors to the desired effect. We had a few planks were we blended too much and it looked like a very blended light brown color, so be careful not to over brush.

Step 4: 

• For the second row, make the next plank a different length than the first row so that the floor boards look alternating. We didn't outline anything or draw any type of pattern, we just continued to make different lengths as we went along.
• The lines between the planks are an effect created by brushing mainly in the center of the plank and not blending the top color all the way to the edge of the 6" plank. When you start the brushing, just keep a little space at the top and sides of each plank.

Step 5: 

• Repeat. We were lucky enough to end with an almost exact 6" plank on the other side of the room so it worked out well for our space. It might be worth measuring before you begin. The finished room without touch up on the side base wall. 

Details

Still have a place for our family silhouettes but need to add one more for Luke!

Recent Projects

If you have any questions about this project or any of the studio items, feel free to send me an email! 

Why Charcoal + Chocolate?

So, why Charcoal + Chocolate you ask? Well, there are a few reasons for the new name of my blog. When I started this blog for Sarah Fina Designs I created it to share some of the design work and projects I was working on. Over time, the blog turned into a place where I share design work (not nearly enough, but I'm working on it) but also where I shared tidbits of everyday life. The blog was previously named Sarah Fina Designs but my content wasn't just about designs. Charcoal + Chocolate represents it all now!

If you know me personally it might be easy to guess one inspirational source for the name Charcoal + Chocolate which is Sampson, our cat and Ponzo, our dog. They are unique in their sold charcoal and chocolate colors.



Sampson (A.K.A. Sam, Andre 3000, Smokey) Ponzo (A.K.A. Ponz, Ponzu Sauce, Ponz-man)

A second inspirational source is two of my favorite rooms in our house painted in charcoal and chocolate. We thought we were taking a big risk by painting these rooms such strong colors but have been extremely happy with the outcome. Our house had a beige living room and a bright red dining room but we love our charcoal and chocolate rooms much better. Check out little smokey in the corner!


Charcoal paint in the living room. Chocolate paint in the dining room.

Charcoal + Chocolate is also represented in quite a few of my most recent designs. The colors fit in many modern and elegant designs I have been working on lately. Here are a few examples.


CharcoalThe main color used in Gino's Promo Landscape and Design Logo. Chocolate A bride's Thank You Card after the wedding. 

I was talking to Gino about my new blog name and he also came up with one more meaning behind Charcoal + Chocolate. Remember what your parents would tell you as a kid if you were bad around Christmas time? They would say that Santa was going to fill your stocking with coal. Because this blog is sometimes about our everyday life, it represents the idea that sometimes life gives you charcoal but other times life gives you sweet chocolate. The only way to navigate through it is to take the charcoal and chocolate together as it comes and try to make the best of it. The funny thing is that I don't even like chocolate, just ask all my friends ;0)! Oh well, it works for the metaphor.

Introducing Charcoal + Chocolate

I have been wanting to re-design my blog for a while now and just started to get around to it! It's still a work in progress, but come check it out. I am still adding posts to the menu bar tabs and working on a few other things, but for the most part I am pretty happy with the new look and feel. I have grown a lot since I started Sarah Fina Designs in 2009 as a person and as a designer and I think my style has evolved a little.

In all honesty, I have been stalling with posting lately because I intended on switching my blog over to wordperss.org with a custom URL. I set things up and tried to get started but it was so much easier and a lot faster for me to update my Blogger site instead of learn and master all the Wordpress codes, widgets, and tools. I have plans to re-design my Web site, my husbands Web site, and eventually my blog site but for now, I will stay here in my cozy and comfortable Blogger home.

You might have noticed the title of my blog is now Charcoal and Chocolate. I will introduce where the name Charcoal + Chocolate comes from tomorrow but the url and subscriptions to this blog will stay the same under sarahfinadesigns.blogspot.

Speaking of subscriptions, thank you to all of my readers out there whoever you are! I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy days to check out what's happening in my world. If you are a subscribe, the changes in the blog appearance won't effect your subscription. If you aren't a subscriber yet, there are three easy way's to subscribe.

1) Reader (I use Google Reader for all of my blog subscriptions)
2) RSS Feed
3) Email

With that, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. If you have questions about the blog design or need help customizing your blog, email me and we can chat.

Luke 8 Months

Luke turned 8 months old on January 16th. He is getting so big that I had to switch the onesie in the photo to a bigger long sleeve onesie! Here are a few updates.
Eating
We have been trying all kinds of different foods along with rice cereal consistently since 6 months. In the beginning he like the rice cereal but gagged a lot on all the baby food I made for him. I tried sweet potatoes, butternut squash, avocados, bananas, bananas and blackberries, apples, peas, carrots, and probably some more but he would gag so much the first few months of trying food. Now that he is 8 months old, these foods are going down a lot better and I keep trying to introduce different and new fruits and vegetables. We have done a little chicken but for the most part make fruits and veggies. He's getting there.
Crawling/Standing
Luke had his army crawl down to a science and can go really fast! He doesn't actually crawl on his hands and knees but will rock back and forth on his knees while propped up on his hands. He has literally just started standing and pulling up on things within the past week. Yesterday during his nap, I had the door cracked opened and looking into his room. To my surprise I see our baby standing all the way up holding on to the side of the crib! Not to worry, that crib was lowered to it's lowest setting last night but it's crazy how things change within just a few days.
Sounds
Luke makes all kinds of cute sounds. He still is a little stingy with his laughs and giggles but makes the "ma ma" and "da da" sound a lot. When he is crying or crawling around looking for me he often says "ma ma" but we aren't 100% convinced it is intentional.
Luke is a very sweet and smiley baby. He smiles at strangers behind my back and has a lot of friends at daycare. It's so nice having a smiley baby because no matter what we do, we can easily make him light up and that makes me light up!

Luke 7 Months

Gosh how time fly’s when you are having fun! Our little boy is almost 8 months old. The photo is from 7 months, it has just taken me a while to post it. He is really developing his personality now and is becoming so sweet, smiley, and fun. He is scooting all around the house and likes to stand up with our help. He smiles at everyone, everywhere we go. If I had to guess, I think he will have a lot of his Dad’s outgoing personality traits, we shall see. I am beginning to see an open mouth smile trend, how cute. He started a new daycare today at a center we were on a waiting list for. I really like the preschool structure of this new school so we are happy to be here for the long run. So far the teachers have been really nice and it sounds like he had a good first day!

Happy Monday to you all.


P.S - His eyes are still brown.