Labor Day…..Celebrated as the end of summer by many Americans, this holiday has an interesting history. It marks the onslaught of the football season in the US, the coming of a new school year for us parents, and my favorite part, a return to “manageable” temperatures here in NY. It doesn’t, however, mean a break from “labor”.

Last weekend, my wife and I decided to go through some old paperwork in our home office. Which led to cleaning out a file cabinet. Which led to getting the desks cleaned off. Which led to realizing the space really wasn’t functional for us. Which led to completely gutting the room, pulling up the carpet ( the LAST room in our house with carpeting ), pulling the baseboards off, spackling holes, and in general, prepping the room for a complete makeover.

I thought that this was a good project to share, just because it is relatively small, inexpensive, and not all that time consuming. As you can see, we’re ready for paint on the walls – and while it is drying, I’ll be touching up the Chestnut baseboards in my workshop. The original goal here was to paint the existing floor, just for something different against the natural finished floors in the rest of our home. But as we feared, the ancient carpet padding had bonded to the flooring like glue, and despite my best efforts with a scraper, wire brush, and some 60 grit sandpaper, it wasn’t going to come off.

So now the plan is to use some Heart Pine flooring that we had left from another project for the flooring, and then paint it. Yes, I’ve been known to cringe at the idea of painting a perfectly good wood floor, but done right, I think that it can be a dramatic accent to a room. I’ll document how we go about it and maybe it will inspire you to try something new.

You can really get a lot of bang for the buck with something like this. In our case, a couple cans of paint, a new work surface for my wife to use for scrapbooking, and an inexpensive chair that folds out into a single bed for guests will give us a nice dual-purpose room. The floor could be anything in a project like this. But we have some stellar Knotty & Naily White Pine right now that is a perfect candidate for a painted floor. Looks a lot like this, but with some nail holes from the prior use of the wood in a factory in Ohio. It has a great price in our Bargain Basement, and is ready to ship as soon as you’d like. The softness of the wood not only helps it to take paint well, but the fact that it WILL get beat up will help make the floor that much more unique.

Give us a call to talk about your project – large or small, they all make an impact on your home. Enjoy the long holiday weekend, and don’t “labor” too hard.

– Jered