Painting a wood floor can be a less expensive alternative to refinishing your floors. What's great about painting wood flooring is that it works just as well for modern homes as it does for traditional homes. It's a pretty simple process that just takes a little time and some patience.

1. First, make sure you sand the floors down with either a floor sander or a hand sander. Remove the excess dust with a wet mop, and allow the floors to dry.

It's best to use an exterior grade paint, and if you want real durability, I would suggest and oil-based enamel. You may want to prime the floors first. I suggest waiting 24 hours between all layers of paint, as well as keeping the room warm so that the paint will dry quicker and more evenly.

2. Using a roller, paint on a layer of the paint color of your choosing. If it is too thick, it will never dry and may ripple and bubble. To thin, and you will be waiting forever.

3. Wait another 24 hrs and apply a second coat of the floor color.

4. If the color looks filled enough, wait for it to dry and then paint over with an oil-based polyurethane clear coat. Oil paint can be a real pain, but with all of the beatings that your floor gets, it is the way to go for longevity.

For a modern look, try a bold high gloss color. For a more traditional approach, think about a harlequin floor pattern or border around the edges.

Let me know how it turns out! I love the look of painted wood.

The easier approach would be to apply a wash coat of finish after the floor has been sanded to at least 100grit. The wash coat is 20% dilution of the finish. I use a waterborne poly finish by BONA called Mega. To create the diamonds mask off the floor with frog tape making sure to really seal the edges. To get the with colour use titanium white pigment about 10 grams to a liter of finish then apply it with a paint pad. For more dramatic white simply paint on more coats. remove the tape then cover the entire floor with 2 coats of finish.