A couple weeks ago I decided to give our master bedroom closet a fresh coat of paint. As usual, one thing led to another and soon I was taking down all the builder grade metal shelving, and ripping up carpet. lol! The domino effect is real! I’m planning on doing a separate blog post to cover the entire closet makeover, but since we’re not finished yet, I thought I’d share the details on the floors now.

The original plan with the floor was to just paint the subfloor white and find a cute area rug to cover most of the floor. Then I decided to take it a step further and create a plank floor with plywood to save on cost. I’ve always loved the look of painted wood floors like these from one of my favorite blogs, lizmarieblog.

The first thing we had to do was pull up the carpet. This is so satisfying! You can never really get all the dust and dirt out of carpet, which is pretty gross when you think about it.

This is what the closet floor looked like once the carpet was out of there. Good riddance!!

Ok, now for how to make pretty plank floors out of plywood! First, we went to Home Depot to check out the different types of plywood. We chose sanded pine plywood in 1/2″ think 4′ x 8′ sheets. We needed 3 sheets to cover our roughly 7′ x 10′ closet floor. These were about $20 each.

Then, we used our table saw to cut them into 7″ wide planks. If you don’t have a table saw, you can ask the staff at Home Depot to have someone cut them for you. We’ve done this for other projects and have never been charged for the service.

Note: I didn’t paint the boards until they were nailed in, but I kind of did it as we went along which is why you see some painted and some not. We used a nickel as a spacer. Worked like a charm and I actually love the imperfectness of it.

We cut the length of the boards as we went a long so that the end to end seams would be staggered. I think the general rule is to keep them staggered at least 6 inches apart.

Then we used our Brad Nailer/nail gun and nailed them into the plywood subfloor that was under the carpet. I didn’t putty and paint the nail holes because I like the rustic look of them. You could always do that if you wanted a more seamless look.

Painting the floor was easy. I just used a regular roller, but you could use one with a handle extension if you didn’t want to be down on your knees. It only took 2 coats to get nice coverage.

I used regular latex paint. The same stuff that’s on the walls. The color is Shoelace by Behr. I use it everywhere. You could use porch paint if you were doing a high traffic area.

Last, we added trim to the baseboards. You could use 3/4 in round for this if you wanted. We used .65 in. x 1.5 in. x 8 ft pieces from Lowe’s to trim it out. I like the look and it’s less expensive. We’re technically not finished yet as you’ll notice in the next photos. It’s simple though, just nail them to the baseboards with a nail gun and give them a coat of paint.

There you have it. For less than $80, we have pretty “farmhouse” floors in our master closet and I love them!!

6 month post project update…

It’s been 6 months since we ripped out the carpet and installed our own plank floors and I’m still so happy with it! I was wondering how they would be to clean, but I just vacuum them with my Dyson like I do all over the house. For a deeper clean every month or so, I will use a damp rag on them.

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