White Hardwood Floors: Sacrilege, or Serenity?

In August, social media lightning rod and artist Caroline Calloway decided to do some spur-of-the-moment home renovations. With piles of clothes and books still on the ground of her Manhattan apartment, she took white paint to all of the hardwood floors. She documented the process on her social media and an uproar ensued. Commenters on Twitter, where it became a trending topic in the U.S., were entertained and mortified about the seemingly slapdash paint job.

Calloway, who has drawn attention with her homemade ornate candles and sparkly collage art, says the white floors are in step with a new aesthetic. “Before, I was a maximal maximalist, and now I am a minimal maximalist,” she says. The inspiration for her white floors simply came from pictures Calloway saw on Pinterest. “They looked really good, and I want my home to look really good.”

The hashtags #whitefloor and #painttok on TikTok show enthused home renovators—both amateurs and professionals alike—opting for stark, white floors over their traditional ones. Redoing wooden floors taps into consumer demand for sustainability and upcycling, and the bucolic-inspired cottagecore aesthetic, which came to define 2020 and a pandemic spent indoors.

“Painted floorboards create a shabby-chic feel that is both welcoming and textural,” says Gemma Riberti, head of interiors at the trend forecasting agency WGSN.

Content creator Brigette Muller posted a TikTok video in July of her finishing painting her wood floors to more than 400,000 views. Muller, who draws inspiration from French and Victorian decorative styles, had actually just moved into a new apartment that already came with white floors. She painted over them to get her desired, warmer shade of white. “White floors have this lived-in, nostalgic quality that just seems to fit perfectly with my overall style,” she says.

Painting wood floors has broad appeal across generations. Lori Guyer, who owns the antique store White Flower Farmhouse in the North Fork of Long Island specializes in renovation works on a budget. She says she’s been painting wooden floors since around 1995, shortly after she and her husband started their family. “I was trying to make a nice home for a family, and I painted floors, I painted furniture, and I did whatever I could do on a shoestring budget,” she says.

In Scandinavia, white floors make the most of available light. Interior designer Karolina Törnqvist, founder of Studio Törnqvist, based in both London and Stockholm, says that it’s something that has been done in Sweden for centuries, dating back to country cottages painting checkered patterns using white on wood floors around the 1700s. It was a cost-effective way to replicate the patterns in checkered stone floors that were found in France and England.

There is one chief concern with having white floors, immediately apparent to anyone with kids. “It’s hard to keep clean,” says interior designer Orlando Soria. During one of the many California lockdowns, Soria stripped his newly acquired cabin in Fish Camp, California of its blue carpet to paint the plywood underneath white. Due to limited options at his local hardware store, Soria used wall paint instead of floor paint.

Guyer recommends one coat of primer, and then two to three coats of floor paint, with an estimated two-day time commitment, from start to finish. She says oil-based enamel paint is the best way to do it, because it gives a durable enamel protective finish. Adding an extra layer of clear coat, she adds, will help protect the floor, especially if you have dogs or young kids in the house, but it’s not a compulsory step, especially when the paint itself already has a gloss or a semi-gloss finish.

The two main factors determining the longevity of the project are your own proficiency and the strength and quality of the paint itself. Guyer says she repainted one floor in her home after five years. Soria, by contrast, estimates that he will touch his floors up with a brush every six months, saying that the sum of the small paint fixes will still cost less than a total floor renovation.

As for Calloway, she still had to put on a top coat by mid-September and says her floor still had a dull, chalky matte finish. “Yeah, that’s on my to-do list, and I’ll probably pay someone to come do that,” she says. “I think I’ll let the professionals handle the polyurethane.”

There are 10 local council areas scattered along the East Coast of Australia that offer both affordability and solid fundamentals for sustainable future growth, according to the research team at residential property network, PRD. The areas have been selected based on five criterion. They are affordability – defined as a median house price below $600,000, rising house values, strong rental yields to encourage investment, a strong pipeline of residential, commercial and infrastructure projects to facilitate local economic development, and low unemployment.

Here are Australia’s 10 most affordable regional property markets with great future potential.

Mackay, QLD

Mackay is a tropical coastal area located in north Queensland. It’s known for its closeconnection to the Great Barrier Reef. The median house price is $462,750, up 8.9 percent in 2023. Mackay attracts a lot of interstate migrants and is home to more than 120,000 people. It has a healthy economy with an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent and $1.7 billion worth of projects due to commence this year.

Toowoomba, QLD

The Toowoomba median house price was up 10.9 percent in 2023.

Toowoomba is located west of Brisbane and is known for its Victorian buildings, street artand surrounding national parks. The median house price is $560,000, up 10.9 percent in 2023. The city has a population of more than 180,000. The unemployment rate is 4 percentand there is $6.1 billion in projects commencing in 2024.

Townsville, QLD

Townsville is a coastal city in north-eastern Queensland. The median house price is $420,000, up 5 percent in 2023. It is home to more than 200,000 people. Unemployment is very low at 2.5 percent and there is $3.2 billion of projects commencing this year.

Dubbo, NSW

Dubbo is located west of Newcastle in the Orana Region and is home to the Western Plains Zoo. The median house price is $530,000, up 11.6 percent in 2023. The population has exploded in recent years to more than 56,000 people. The unemployment rate is just 2.2percent and the economy is thriving. There is a pipeline of $4.7 billion in projects commencing this year.

Tamworth, NSW

Located in north-east NSW, Tamworth is known for its popular annual Country Music Festival. It’s also the largest retail centre for the New England and Northwest Slopes regions. The median house price is $490,000, up 14 percent in 2023. With a population of more than 65,000 people, the economy is strong with unemployment of just 2 percent and $112.4million worth of projects commencing this year.

Griffith, NSW

Located west of Sydney and northwest of Canberra, Griffith is known for its prime produce production and wine cultivation. The median house price is $531,000, up 2.1 percent in 2023. Griffith’s population is about 27,000 people. The city boasts high economic resilience with a 2 percent unemployment rate and $258.7 million in projects in the pipeline.

Ballarat, VIC

Ballarat is a 1.5–hour drive west of Melbourne. It’s popular with city commuters who move here for housing affordability and a relaxed lifestyle with easy access to the city via train. The median house price is $570,000, down 4.2 percent in 2023 but up 92.9 percent over the past decade. The city has the third highest population in Victoria at about 118,000. Ballarat has an unemployment rate of 3 percent and a total projects pipeline worth $2.3 billion for 2024.

Shepparton, VIC

Shepparton is a rural area about two hours north of Melbourne. It is popularly referred to as ‘the food bowl of Australia’. The median house price is $475,000, up 4.4 percent in 2023. The population is about 70,000. The unemployment rate is just 2 percent and there is $1.8 billion in projects for 2024.

Wodonga, VIC

Wodonga is located on the border of NSW on the southern side of the Murray River. It is approximately 320km from Melbourne and 345km from Canberra. The median house price is $567,250, up 4.7 percent in 2023. With a population of about 44,000, the city’s jobless rate is 3 percent and there is $388.2 million in development set to commence in 2024, primarily new infrastructure.

Burnie, TAS

Burnie is a bustling port city located in Emu Bay in Tasmania’s north-west. Overlooking beaches and parklands, the area is known for its rich agriculture and mining projects. The median house price is $435,000, up 3.6 percent. Despite a rising population, the unemployment rate is falling and is currently 5.6 percent. In 2024, Burnie’s project pipeline is valued at approximately $1.6 billion. A significant portion is commercial development, primarily renewable energy projects.