DIY Painted Checkerboard Floor

The dairy renovation seemed like the perfect excuse to go a little crazy with decorating. Not nutso crazy but I wanted to try a few ideas I’ve been thinking about and would most likely never use inside our home. Enter the DIY painted checkerboard floor. Sounds simple. I mean, it’s a bunch of squares painted on a floor.

But when it comes to executing this look, it’s definitely not for anyone who lacks patience and doesn’t like sitting on a floor for many hours.

If that doesn’t deter you, and you’re up for creating this stunning look for very little money, read on to find out how.

Why Did I Choose a Checkerboard Floor?

Okay, I’m being honest here. Budget, or lack of, was a MAJOR factor. We spent WAY more than we were expecting to on this renovation.

With the rebuild, brickwork, electrics, lining, new floor, and whatever else, I think we were probably all in for around $20 000! (When I say that out loud it kind of scares me, for a building that has no clear purpose.) However, if we had bought another investment property we would have spent 100 x more and the building has already started to pay its way in use for storage, animal housing, and farm tours. The need to really rein back on the most critical part, the aesthetics, was important. Putting in a timber floor was out of the question.

Secondly, I did not want the cold look of painted concrete. I wanted the space to feel cute and cottage-like. Having painted concrete or lino just wasn’t an option for me.

Tools Required for a DIY Checkerboard Floor

• 2 colours of paint. I used low sheen acrylic because I have sealed and primed the floor but you could use floor paint. The colour of our paint was Dulux Feather Soft (white/grey we have on the floors of the interior of the farmhouse and Dulux Plasticine.
• Floor sealer. My choice was the left over from sealing the floor for tiling during our bathroom renovations. Searching any concrete floor sealer from your local hardware will do.
• A tile template cut to your desired size. Ours is 40cm x 40cm. I tried a couple of smaller sizes first but went with a tile double my original idea. Firstly, masking off all the smaller tiles would have been a nightmare. Second, the scale looked all wrong for the room.
• String line to get a straight line to work from
• A 40 x 40 L Square ruler. I used this on some of the squares to rule into the edges where the template could not fit.
• Blue painters tape
• Gloss water based clear varnish to seal the floor and protect once painted. My go to is Cabots. I use this on most projects in the suitable type for the project. It’s non yellowing and the gloss finish added a depth to the colour of the floor.
• A VERY padded blanket or rug to roll and sit on. You are going to spend a lot of time on your knees. Concrete floors are hard and cold!
• A pencil for tracing
• An eraser to rub out any mistakes before you seal
• Paint brushes and roller/ roller kit

What To Do

1. Clean the floor of all dust and debris.
2. Seal the floor with two coats of sealer and allow to dry
3. Paint the entire floor in the base coat of your choosing giving it two coats and allowing to dry. I painted the lighter colour first. I did not need to prep the walls by masking off as the wall and floor colour are the same. This was a deliberate choice to save time and money as we had the paint on hand.
4. When the floor is dry, mark two straight lines diagonally from corner to corner to find the middle of the room. Begin there. If you use a chalked string line it is much easier.
5. Put on edge of your template along the string line and trace around it. Continue along the line until you have marked suqares from corner to corner.
6. Once you have finished drawing the squares, put a piece of painters tape on every alternate square so you know which ones will be painted. I realise it is obvious which ones you will paint but believe me, when you start looking at all those squares it suddenly becomes very UN-obvious! You need to mask around the inside of each square you will NOT paint. That way the ones you do paint end up being the correct size.
7. Start painting

Finishing the Floor

I painted our floor ’tiles’ by hand with a paint brush. This took longer but in the end the time balanced out as I only needed to do one coat. Using a paint brush gives a thicker coat of paint. As the squares dried, I only needed to touch up any little streaky parts with the brush, rather than having to paint two complete coats on the floor with a roller that puts on less paint initially. Plus you can be more precise with a paintbrush.

When the floor was dry, I removed the tape and vacuumed and erased any pencil marks. then I washed the floor again. We had our chick brooder in the corner of the dairy so muddy feet were going in and out as I was doing this project. I then gave the floor two coats of clear varnish to complete. This will protect it and make cleaning a whole lot easier!

If you try this idea, I’d love to see the result.