You might remember my ranty updates about our porch renovation/restoration we started a couple weeks back. Now we are finally getting to the good part, aka, painting.

The colour wasn’t a hard decision, as one would think, instead I did a lot of research and umming and ahing about what type of paint we’d use. First we were going to go with some standard high gloss floor paint, but then I was like fuck that, we didn’t do all that hard work of getting off the carpet glue just to slather on a different form of plastic.

Oldenday people knew better and they used linseed oil paint for wood because it’s just superior with how it looks, lets the wood breathe, is non toxic and it wares off beautifully over time. After quite a lot of research I found a Swedish company Allbäck that is very popular with people who restore old houses, and oh, they even painted the window sills of Versaille with this paint during restorations so it’s good enough for this princess too.

I knew next to nothing about painting with linseed oil paint, or any paint for that matter, but I read about it for weeks before getting to this stage. I bought a really expensive dence natural fibre brush to go with the paint because the paint is not self leveling like most modern paints, and because it’s oily, the brushes can actually be used again as they are easier to keep in good condition. Painting with this kind of oily paint is quite different than with a ”normal” paint, you need to do really thin layers and really work the paint into the wood and then even it out.

You need to paint with a dry enough brush that by the end of it, there is more paint in the bucket than when you started.
-a Swedish instruction about using oil paint

Luckily I already have a tendency to paint with a dry brush. I can not express with words how enjoyable it is to work with linseed oil paint; it smells really nice and the finish is just so beautiful. Because the dry time is very very long, you have a lot of time to fiddle with the paint and you don’t have to paint one plank at a time from end to end.

I prepared the lightly sanded floor a few days before with raw linseed oil so that when I do in with the paint, the wood doesn’t suck all of it in and then you end up needing a lot of layers. Since I know nothing and had a lot of conflicting information, you might not want to do like I did, but I put in both water and varnish(boiled linseed oil) into the paint so that it maybe possibly would be more durable in the end.

I worked pretty slowly because there really is no rush with this paint, and first it was very opaque but then I started to see how the paint sunk into the wood like it’s supposed to. It’s insane how little you need, I think I had about 2dl paint mixed with maybe 1dl of water and a splash of extra oil and I painted the whole floor with it.

The only downside to linseed oil paint is that it dries very very slowly and it might take as long as three days before you can do another layer. I’m really pushing it with this weather because it’s already almost down to zero at night and the humidity could be a problem too. I have heating on in the hallway and the door open, plus extra light for the night on the porch because the paint needs it.

Everything is cleaned up for now and it’s just a lot of waiting. The project also won’t end with the clean white layer, I have more plans for it, but the timeline is unclear. I’ve been seeing a lot of this checkerboard pattern in old houses and I think it’s very cute and charming, and I think it would look very nice in the porch. Though especially in the wintertime the floor will be covered with some sort of carpets because a painted wood floor in the entryway is a fucking death trap when you have snowy shoes.

See you again in a few days!