This weekend, my husband and I decided to FINALLY paint our entryway floor. It was already painted white. For months I have wanted to do away with our rug and paint a design on the floor. The rug always got stuck under the door, it was just a pain. We have a huge exterior rug to wipe your feet on, so no practical need for one on the inside. So, after a couple of months of researching ideas for the front entryway I decided on a design. It is actually inspired by floors painted in the famous Bunny Mellon's home in Antigua. She had a decorative artist paint the floors in a Swedish-style that mimic stone paving. They are stunning and the moment I stumbled upon the photo, I knew it was the perfect design. You can see the source of my inspiration here.
Now for paint colors. This one took me longer to choose than the floor pattern. My walls are wallpapered in a beautiful chinoiserie print. I wanted the colors to compliment the walls not compete. I decided to go with varying shades of the most serene color on the planet; blue. The colors I decided on are Rainy Night by Amy Howard and for the lighter square of color I used leftover blue paint I had from Family Room floor. (Read all about that here).
My husband sketched this drawing and did all the measurements (aka math) to figure out the pattern.
If I was left alone to do this project, I would probably have just free handed the whole thing. That is how my artistic chaotic brain works. My husband, bless him, works very differently. Thank goodness. He is very organized, mathematical and a perfectionist. (Opposites attract). So, the darling man taped out the whole pattern for me. I can not explain this process to do it justice. Below are the photos in chronological order of the process.
Hopefully, this visual helps explain how we achieved this floor pattern. This is how we spent our Friday night and Saturday night. (When you have 4 kids you have to wait until everyone is asleep before you can start painting floors). We painted the colors on Friday night. Let dry overnight. Then on Saturday I hand sanded the floors to give it that beautiful distressed look.
We then put several coats of water based polyurethane to seal the design.
I absolutely love the floors and how they turned out. What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts.