# Old old linoleum, can it take paint?



## ccarlisle (Jul 2, 2008)

_..."could I slap on some paint in the meantime?_

what and have it look decent? Really doubt it.

Linoleum (and I take your word for it that it _is_ 'linoluem' not vinyl) was made from linseed oil and, by now, has hardened quite a bit. But compared to a hard flooring, like ceramic, it is soft - and so the layer of paint you put on it will most likely crack over time. You'll have chips with your flakes...

That is if the paint you put down is compatible with linoleum.


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*looks*

I'm not thinking it'll look anywhere decent or nice, I just am seeking to get rid of that awful, unbearable, sorta black and sorta white checkerboard. lol


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## slickshift (Aug 25, 2005)

It might stick, it might not
Chances are high (too high IMO) it won't
And even if it does, for a while, chances are high it will leave you with an even bigger mess later
(well it will no matter what, but technically it's possible it might not be that much of a bigger mess)
I'd suggest living with it until you can have it done properly

If you must coat now, try an alkyd "porch & floor" type enamel, and hope for the best
There is always the (slim) chance it will hold out for a year (or maybe more)
If it fails however, it will create a horrible mess, maybe all at once, maybe over time

Oh, and make sure it's really linoleum, not CVT (commercial vinyl tile)
CVT you might perhaps have a better chance with water-based
Either way, it's gotta be stripped and cleaned like nobody's business before coating

Again, I can not recommend it
I'd suggest living with it until you can do it right


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

Oh, Lord. I'm old. I'm worn out. 

I go in any of those three bedrooms of this horrid old house I bought, and I can't stand one whole minute. Bleah-black and bleah-white checkerboard nightmare floor. No. Sixty seconds, and I'm shivvering me timbers, whatever that is. Who would think a floor is so important, so influential?

And I have to have a URL to post photos here? You're joking! Archaic!! I see there's a blog option. For your amusement, I'll go there. Give me a few minutes. Or tomorrow.

That sorta-black and sorta-white checkered floor makes me feel like I ate too much Anchovy Icecream. 

The leaky roof, and Grand Canyon driveway are first on the list, with the upgrade budget that went the way of my stock market portfolio. Waaaaa. Pffft. and owell.

Arrr! I'll give it a go for a --- year? A few months? The real estate market here is loaded with boomers seeking retirement in Paradise, the fools. I'll put this baby on Ebay auction if it's too much for me. But the place is very quiet, very peaceful. I wanna live there for a coupla years, then rent it for my income, that works, sometimes.

But all help will be greatly appreciated!!! I'm just a stoopid old lady that doesn't really want to do any blue jobs.

Let's go for a sail, and go for a dive.

Cheers, 

Goofy Melissa, at this point. 

OH! and, I crawled up the stepladder, peeked over the edge, and the roof looks like... um, just plywood. Does anyone just nail plywood to joists(is that the word?) Those beam things, for a roof?? NO! Do some tape thing with the seams, then just paint the plywood??? And then, if no one paints it for ten, fifteen years, it just might start leaking?

Lordy, Lordy, should I start writing a book? hahahahaha!

Thanks for any helpful suggestions.

Whew


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*???*

I've been gabbing on the internet for nine years, and this is the MOST user unfriendly, confusing, difficult-to use place I've EVER been!!!!!!


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*...*

I uploaded a photo someplace here, but you'll have to try to find it.

Worst forum I've ever visited. Twisted minds thought up the workings of this place, trust me.


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## bofusmosby (Apr 30, 2007)

Ah, come on, its not that bad, once you get the hang of it. :wink: When you are making a post, scroll down to "manage attachments" Push this, and then a box will pop up, and if you have a photo stored on your computer, you can push "brouse". When you find the photo you want to post, push open. Then, press the "upload" button. Just keep this in mind, you may have to resize the photo on your computer before you do this. Try to keep the photo file at about 100 kb. This is what i do.

BTW, welcome aboard! I too have the stupid checker-board pattern in my kitchen. It could be a sheet of linoleum, but I'm not sure. Its not in too good of shape either. Someday soon, I hope to replace it with something MUCH better. Painting it never even occured to me, but I doubt it would last too long.

Bofus


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*.*

Late, tired, and still grossed out at those ... floors.

Early(I'm a morning person) full of the best coffee, and my opinion of those horrid floors is the same "...".

I just need a quick fix until I have enough moneymoney. The leaky roof is more important. Six months...

There's a little 'scenery' icon up there that only allows a URL photo. Thanks for the scroll down instructions! I am not very good at reading, tho' I read books of all sorts all the time.

I uploaded the photo once, and it doen't show here. Yes, it's all resized and compresses. Oh, but it's down there. Confusing.

(edit: Hooray!)


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## bofusmosby (Apr 30, 2007)

Sorry, I was just trying to help.:huh:


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*!!*

Hey! You did help! I was NOT aiming at offending you!!!

That black and white is visual rap music at 130 decibels, no? 

I have very little furniture, like, not even a bed right now. Maybe I can put down painted floor cloth...

very very very sorry your feeling got hurt.

not my intention at all.


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*.*

Now I'm confused. Bofus, How in the World did I offend you?? I simply said that a floor is unbearable to me.

The entire house has those old tiles. Three small bedrooms are the black and white. The LR, hall, and kitchen are a bland, worn out, broken is spots, sort of cream color. I want all of it replaced, the whole house. Big project. I think it best to fix the roof first, and the steep, dirt driveway that only a jeep can negotiate for the ruts.


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## bofusmosby (Apr 30, 2007)

Sorry, I misunderstood you. When you mentioned about reading all the time, I thought you were being sarcastic about my instructions on posting a photo. No harm, I'm a big boy!:thumbsup:

Well, I agree with you about the tiles "looking" like loud rap-music. I will be replacing mine as well. However, first I have to get the outside of my house finished. By the way its going, it'l take years for that to happen. Below my floor is another layer of linoleum in just as bad a condition from the 20's or 30's. 

BTW, there might be some asbestos in those tiles. Be careful!

I agree with you about your roof. Much more important! Maybe you can put down some throw rugs in places to "mute" the loud floor.:laughing:


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

OK. I am misunderstood all the time!


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## bofusmosby (Apr 30, 2007)

:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing: I like that!


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## retro (Apr 1, 2008)

odd... I like those tiles. Get some Ajax and scrub em clean. If you must though Cheapest easiest way to cover it, is to buy some really cheap carpets. The word remnants come to mind. Buy it cut it put it down forget about the tiles.


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

Very little carpet where I am, most places have ceramic tile floors.

Construction here is sooo different than places where a stick-built house is a safe place to live. Hurricanes are like huge tornadoes. One just hit Cuba with 145 mph winds, with higher gusts, and imbedded tornadoes. There almost isn't a window that can resist water entry.

Owell. Those stained and dull black and white tiles would be OK in a kitchen or bathroom, but just not an office or bedroom. Too jazzyjittery. I am very influenced by my surroundings.

And I'd still feel those tiles under cheap, cheap feeling ccarpet. I'm not one to just spend gobs of money just because things are pricey, as some folks who go around pointing out yags all the time. I have been around understated quality, and it feels really good. Creates a very wonderful atmousphere.

OK, different strokes for different folks! I am starting to think I don't want this remodel project at all!


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

MolaMola:

I believe that you can paint those tiles and the paint will stick well. You'd need to clean the floor first. If it were me, I would paint the floor with an INTERIOR oil based primer, allow to dry, and then top coat with a polyurethane floor paint. Polyurethane floor paints typically pretinted in only about 3 or 4 colours, typically light grey, dark grey, reddish brown and navy blue. If you can't stomach your floors the way they are, I doubt you could stomach an expanse of blue paint on the floor. So, you could always opt for an interior oil based wall paint that you can have tinted to any shade. It'll just dry to a softer film and take longer to dry.

But, it's very likely that whomever installed those floor tiles probably put a coat of floor finish on them. Most homeowners know squat about maintaining resiliant tile floors, so it's very likely that that floor finish is still there, but it's just dirty from decades of dirt being imbedded in it underfoot.

If it were me, I would go to any place advertised under "Janitorial Equipment & Supplies" in your yellow pages phone book and buy a gallon of floor wax stripper meant for acrylic floor finishes. (Who knows, someone may have even put Carnauba Wax on that floor in the past, and you may need to strip that off with Ammonia.) Some monkey homeowner might have even painted over the #$%@# floor with hardwood floor polyurethane, for that matter. You never know what a homeowner will do in his wisdom.

Still, my gameplan would be to go visit any small janitorial service company listed in your yellow pages and buy a half liter bottle of floor wax stripper from them for $10 (or so) and try cleaning that floor with it and a green Scotchbrite pad. Bring your own bottle cuz floor wax stripper typically only comes by the gallon jug, 5 gallon pail or by the 23 liter "enviropac". Just pour a little onto your tile floor, allow 10 to 20 minutes for it to penetrate into the floor finish, and then start scrubbing with a scrub brush or a green or white Scotchbrite pad.

Where the floor is really dirty, you can scrub with SOAPY steel wool. Using an abrasive cleaner like Ajax will roughen the tiles. Steel wool, so long as it's soapy, will actually polish the tile (while removing any dirt from it).

I've been maintaining resiliant tile floors for nearly 20 years. Try stripping any dirt infested finish off your floors and you may find they come out looking much better than you expect. And, I'll be able to teach you how to keep them looking good.

I agree that this place is one of the less friendly forums I've posted on, and I've posted on quite a few. But, my experience was influenced by a monkey in the ceramic tiling business who chooses to address me by my last name and thinks I know nothing but just copy and paste everything from other web sites I'm lucky enough to find that explain all the answers.
But, the other side of the coin is that people everywhere are the same, and it's highly improbable that one web site would attract all the jerks on the internet, but there does remain a non-zero probability of that happening.

I was born confused and this web site isn't helping.

Clean the ugliest area of your floor with a soapy steel wool pad and see how it looks. If you like the results, see if you can strip off any floor finish still on the floor. If you still like what you see, then post again and I can tell you how to keep it looking that way. If you don't, then you can always paint over it.


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

*floor*

Nestor_Kelebay, 

Thank you for your reply. Most useful, and taken into consideration. 
.
.
I was meaning user-difficulty when I said unfriendly, of this website. No problem!

You must be joking to say to scrub a whole house's floor with a scotchbrite pad. lol

I MUST have a snow white floor. There are ten inch long-- centipedes --where I live. They get into houses, no matter how you try to keep them out. They are very POISONOUS, and their bite is excruciatingly painful for weeks. They dislike being so exposed as on a white floor, and run to hide. On a black and white surface such as this, they would simply rest on the black squares. Maybe you can come to visit, wearing sandals or flipflops, it's tropical here, and step on one and get bit.

I have to live with this floor. I dislike this floor. No one who's posted here will ever see it, so why the comments that they like it?? Too bad, I just don't want it. It's ugly.

All I asked was, can this be painted?

~~Yes, it can, with blablabla.

~~No, it can't.

Thank you everyone.

Goodbye.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

Well, Molamola, the need to keep the floor white to make centipedes visible is a new consideration that no one knew about until your last post, and I agree that this reason trumps all other reasons NOT to paint the floor.

Here's how to proceed:

0. Clean the floor. Probably the best way to do that is to go to any janitorial supply store and ask for something called a "doodle bug pad holder" and ask for a black" or even a "high productivity" doodle bug pad for it. Doodle bug pad holders come in both handheld and pole mounted styles. The pole mounted style has a pivoting female screw thread on it suitable for mounting the holder on a the same sort of pole you screw a paint roller frame onto. Doodle bug pads come in various colours with the white ones being the least aggressive and the black ones being most aggressive. Special "high productivity" pads are black in colour and are extremely agressive. I'd probably buy a high productivity doodle bug pad and use that with a pole mounted holder and some Mr. Clean, and then clean up the soiled cleaner with a sponge mop. Rinse with clean water.

1. Get some INTERIOR alkyd based primer and paint a small area of the floor. Allow time for the primer to dry and test for adhesion with ordinary 1 or 2 inch wide yellow masking tape. Press the tape down onto the primer and then pull it off quickly. If the primer comes off with the tape, then it's not sticking properly to the floor. I expect the oil based primer will stick OK.

Primers often don't have very good hide, and one coat may not be able to hide the checkered pattern on the floor. Go to a paint store that sells quality products like Pratt & Lambert, Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams or C2 paints and ask for a HIGH HIDING interior alkyd primer. Even then you may need to put two coats on.

2. You're never going to find a WHITE floor paint. It's simply not a practical colour for a floor. But, since the alkyd primer will dry white, I think the best option would be to top coat the primer with a very hard drying CLEAR acrylic coating. The coating that comes to mind is water based Varathane Diamond Floor Finish:

http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=66

That should give you a very durable white floor that won't yellow with age. Also, you might want to go with the satin gloss top coat rather than the high gloss for better traction.

PS:
I didn't intend to suggest you clean a whole basement floor with a 3 inch by 5 inch Scotchbrite pad. You'll find that they sell 4 1/2 inch by 9 inch doodle bug pads made from exactly the same material that you buy in grocery stores for scouring pots. And, if you phone around to the places selling "Machine Shop Equipment and Supplies" in your yellow pages, you'll find this material being sold in a 6 inch by 10 inch size for polishing metals after machining.


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

Ah, thanks much. I was just seeing myelf on my knees with a horrid little scrubber---lol. And this is a 3 bedroom house, not a basement. 2,600 sq feet.

Sounds like an awful lot of hard work for an arthritic old woman. Isn't there something like a belt sander on a pole that is rentable? If the rental place even has one--- owell, if that's what I must do. There's only 50,000 people on this little island, so stores are always lacking. Maybe I can find the items you mention, or find them on the internet...

Plus the black and white checkered IS the primary reason, I cannot stand it. Centipedes are a crap game, not a day to day headache. I don't understand why folks want me to live with something I think is ugly and that I severely dislike?????? wierd. All day, every day, "ugh." I'm glad I'm not married to you!! haha!

OK, hmmm, where's my pen and list.... This is dicouraging. owell.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

> Isn't there something like a belt sander on a pole that is rentable?


Well, there are machines that do this kind of work. They go by different names, with the most common just being a "floor machine". It's also called a "floor scrubber", "floor buffer" or "floor polisher" or even "swing machine". Everyone calls the same machine by a different name.

Here's some pictures of floor machines so you know what to look for:

http://www.cleanfreak.com/goldmedal/tc17_20burnisher.htm

http://www.centaurmachines.com/

http://www.uclean.com/catalog/produ....html?sessid=cb9783a485d968fa1f325c9be566992d

http://www.mercuryfloormachines.com/floor_machines.htm

Now, I expect it would be easier to find a janitorial service company in your area that would do this kind of work as a service than it would be to rent one of these machines.

The reason why few people would be willing to rent them is that the machine consists of an electric motor that simply turns a large circular Scotchbrite pad that the machine sits on. To steer the machine, you simply push down or lift up on the handle. That results in more of the machine's weight being over a part of the pad that's moving to the left or to the right, and that causes the machine to move in the opposite direction.

The problem is that few people renting a floor machine would know how to steer it or control it without smacking it into a wall or losing it down a flight of steps. Unless the person renting it to you is confident that you'd know how to handle it, they wouldn't rent it to you for much less than it's selling price because they'd presume you'd wreck it trying to learn how to use it. Either that, or they'd show you how to use it and have you practice in their place of business with it until they were confident you could control it properly before they rented it to you.

If you can't find a rental floor machine, maybe phone around to the places listed under "Janitorial Services" in your yellow pages, and every one of those places will have a floor machine and be willing to clean your checkered floor with it for a price. Or, they may be willing to sell you or let you rent an old floor machine that they seldom use.
It wouldn't take long for a single person to clean all the checkered tile in your house with one of these machines using a brown, black or high productivity pad. Two people working; one with the floor machine doing the cleaning, and another using a wet/dry vaccuum to lift the soiled cleaner off the floor could do the whole house easily in a day.

Just in the same way that doodle bug pads come in different colours, you can also buy circular pads for floor machines in all those same colours in sizes ranging from about 8 inches to 22 inches in diameter. 
Typically, floor machines will use pads from 12 to 22 inches in diameter, wheras the smaller diameter pads are used on self propelled or ride-on cleaning equipment that will have multiple small cleaning pads at the front of the machine. They don't make very small floor machines that take a single 8 inch circular pad because you need enough weight for these machines to scrub the floors hard to get them clean, and you simply can't achieve as hard a scrubbing action if the machine weighs only a few pounds like the hardwood floor polishers you see at every garage sale. Typically, a floor machine will weigh at least a hundred pounds or more. In fact, Centaur makes a 40 pound weight as an accessory to put on their floor machines to make the machine heavier for a more aggresive scrub. My Centaur Rabbit also allows me to change the drive block so that I can convert it into a 13 inch floor machine, thereby doubling the weight per square inch of pad the machine sits on. If I also put their 40 pound weight accessory on, I can almost scrub a
hole in the floor.

(You can also buy round sanding screens for these floor machines for sanding down hardwood floors to refinish them.)

I think if you use a high productivity doodle bug pad on a holder meant to be mounted on a pole, you could do a good job cleaning your floor without the expense of renting a floor machine or hiring someone to do the job for you. Certainly, the floor machine would do the work both better and faster, but I think that economy plays a major role in the decision making process here as well.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

Maybe I spoke too soon.

Here's a place that rents a 13 inch floor machine for $22.30 per day and a 17 inch floor machine for $33.10 per day:

http://www.sudburytaylor.com/tools/floor_care.html

So, maybe there's a good chance you can find someone renting floor machines in your area.


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## molamola (Nov 6, 2008)

Hmm, thank you. Hmm, I'll get back about all this, I've moved my phone book, and it's past my bedtime, too! I get up very early.

Cheers,

Melissa


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