A painted floor could be resanded in the future like any other floor. The most important consideration is to make sure your substrate is properly prepared so the paint doesn't flake or peel off.

I've painted my old house floors ( were painted in the 1920s) in two colors: light gray in the bedrooms and terracotta everywhere else. Light gray was a lot of work, even that bedrooms didn't get that much traffic, showing every speck of dust.

The only thing you need to be aware of, is the amount of wood needed to be removed to get the paint off.

I recently did an old Fir floor and a section was painted. now this was 100+ yr old fir and the paint was slopped on. i had to remove a LOT of wood, to get all the paint off, and i still didnt get it all out. but that was mostly because the floor was gaped when they painted, so the sides of the planks were painted as well.

Now your open grain woods like Oak, and woods like pine and fir will have paint that will give deep down and may require to sand a lot of wood in order to get clean again.

If you're floor is tight with no gaping then go ahead and paint, if your floor is gaped, i suggest you fill the floor first. you can use dry wall mud. and then sand flat, then paint. this will help keep the paint from dripping down the sides of the planks and makes it much easier when you want to resand down the line.

So, I just a little while ago found out my from a neighbor that the floors in all the houses here are mahogany. If that's true, then I seriously need to re-think my "just paint over it" idea. There's no way I could afford to replace with solid mahogany down the line, so it might make sense for me to go back to my Plan A and just cover the ugliness with a cheap piece of carpet for now and then look at having them re-finished in a year or two.

Any other thoughts, ideas? Is there a way to confirm if these floors are indeed mahogany? (I would think that, given the hardness rating of mahogany, they would withstand dog claws a lot better..)

Buy some time with the rug idea until you can afford to refinish.

Pictures maybe?

Posting some photos -- but please note that they don't look as bad here as they do

in person.

I doubt that they are mahogany. looks like maple, but it is hard to see some grain work in the photos.

A very common misconception about hardness rating and scratches. Just because a species of wood has a high Janka rating, doesnt mean they are any more better that dealing with scratches then the next. you need to understand how the test is measured and preformed, and then you will have a better understanding of the system

They take a sample piece of wood, and measure the amount of force required to embed a .444inch diameter steel ball to half its diameter. so the number you see in the charts is just the amount of force it took to perform that task.

Those would be beautiful refinished. IF there is enough room above the tongue to sand. You really ought to get some professional on site input about that and quotes before carpeting over them. Carpet and labor won't be that much $ difference than refinishing.

Sophie - Well, I'm not actually installing carpet - more like getting a cheap piece of it and throwing it over the ugly floors for now. At 53 cents a sq ft, there's no other cheaper option for now.

Gregmills - When I think about the materials used in the rest of the house, I seriously doubt they're mahogany, too. This wasn't a high-end house when they built it in '58; at best, I'd say this was built as a mid-grade home and so I'm thinking oak or maple are more likely.

Painting that floor is probably not an option. I seriously doubt whether paint would stick to it for very long, without doing some serious preparation work. If I was contracted to paint that floor I would sand it thoroughly first. If I was sanding that floor I would finish it rather than painting.

I'd clean it thoroughly and drop some rugs on it for now.

"screening" (a light sanding) might be enough if you want a distressed floor.

hapagrrl, What did you ultimately decide to do? I know this was 2+ years ago but I'm interested because I'm thinking about painting over ugly honey oak floors -- that are both newer and cheap. Thanks for any update you provide.