White Hardwood Floors: Sacrilege, or Serenity?
Kanebridge News
Share Button

White Hardwood Floors: Sacrilege, or Serenity?

Painting over your hardwoods reflects more light. But there’s a cost…

By Angelica Frey
Fri, Oct 15, 2021 3:12pmGrey Clock 3 min

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.”



MOST POPULAR

As Australia’s family offices expand their presence in private credit, a growing number of commercial real estate debt (CRED) managers are turning to them as flexible, strategic funding partners.

Knight Frank’s latest Horizon 2025 update signals renewed confidence in Australian commercial real estate, with signs of recovery accelerating across cities and sectors.

Related Stories
Property
PROPERTY OF THE WEEK: 91 WILLIAM ST, BRIGHTON
By Kirsten Craze 23/05/2025
Property
Commercial Property Market Set to Rebound Through 2026
By Jeni O'Dowd 22/05/2025
Property
Emma Stone Asks $26.5 Million for Freshly Renovated Austin Home
By KATHERINE CLARKE 21/05/2025
PROPERTY OF THE WEEK: 91 WILLIAM ST, BRIGHTON

Blending brutalist strength with warm, refined interiors, Rumah is a bold architectural statement in Brighton’s coastal enclave — a designer family home where luxury meets liveability.

By Kirsten Craze
Fri, May 23, 2025 2 min

Rumah means “home” in Indonesian and Malay, and it’s clear this designer property in Melbourne’s coveted beachside enclave of Brighton is a dream house in any language.

The uber-contemporary residence is a collaboration between builders Belot Property, Seidler Group architects, and the interiors team at Golden.

The result is a modern marvel that combines a brutalist concrete exterior ready to weather its coastal setting with inviting interiors using a mix of textures, from French oak to metal and brick finishes.

Just listed with Kay & Burton Bayside agents, Rae Mano, Matthew Pillios and Jamie Mi, the prestige property is on the market via a private treaty campaign with price expectations of between $10.5 million and $11.5 million.

Created to be a great entertainer while maintaining a level of discreet privacy, Rumah is, at its heart, a warm, family-friendly home that ticks all the boxes for detail-oriented design connoisseurs.

A palette of contradictions, Rumah blends angular and rounded forms, features hard steel and glass, and effortlessly incorporates the earthy finishes of brick and timber for a holistic sensory experience.

Beyond the oversized pivot door sits a large structural column wrapped in gold leaf, setting the tone for the rest of the residence. The three-storey layout offers a choice of multigenerational spaces, from the ground-floor everyday living level to the accommodation wing on the top floor and the large basement “clubhouse.”

At the heart of the home, a gourmet kitchen features a dramatic island bench, high-end appliances, and a full butler’s pantry. Multiple spaces feed off the kitchen, including a vast dining area and a large living room, which both spill out through full-height glazed doors to either a side barbecue terrace or the poolside deck to the rear.

Even the downstairs entertainer’s room – also known as the club – is effectively poolside thanks to an innovative glass viewing window framing swimmers and cleverly connecting the subterranean level to the rest of the home. This games room also houses a sophisticated bar, a wine cellar, integrated night club style lounge seating and a full bathroom.

Additionally, the lower floor features a hidden laundry room, two store rooms, direct access to a huge five-car garage with a convenient turning circle, and an extra bedroom or home office.

Via the private elevator, the top floor is dedicated to after-hours living. It has four spacious bedrooms, each with its own ensuite and walk-in wardrobes. In the luxurious primary suite, there is a hotel-inspired ensuite with a unique kidney-shaped freestanding bath and a dressing room.

Rumah’s added extras include warming indoor and outdoor fireplaces, automatic blinds, feature lighting, marble accents, bespoke wallpaper, built-in bedheads, an external spa and low-maintenance landscaped gardens.

Positioned on the corner of William and Halifax Sts, the 21st-century beach house is opposite William St Reserve, close to Brighton Primary School.

Rumah at 91 William St, Brighton is on the market via private sale with Kay & Burton Bayside and has a sales guide of $10.5 million and $11.5 million.

MOST POPULAR

The U.S. now has more billionaires than China for the first time in a decade, driven by AI and a booming stock market.

If U.S. stock prices continue to fall, wealthy consumers could slow their spending, putting further pressure on the U.S. economy and markets. That could mean everything from fewer luxury cars and handbags being sold to reduced demand for top-end homes and fancy vacations. Broadly, retail sales rose a less-than-expected 0.2% in February from January, the Census Bureau …

Related Stories
Lifestyle
The Art of Living Beautifully
By Ozge Fettahlioglu 15/04/2025
Property
‘What’s Going On in That Room?’ A Dublin Townhouse Gets a Mystical, Leap-of-Faith Reimagining
By KATHRYN O'SHEA-EVANS 24/03/2025
Money
Shein’s Bargain-App Formula Crumbles Under Trump
By Raffaele Huang & Shen Lu 11/04/2025
0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop