Tuscan Floor Cloth

Do you have a kitchen floor that needs some help?  Maybe it is drab, beat up or just plain ugly. 

Mine is not bad, just dark and to lighten it up I decided to paint up a floor cloth.  The beauty of floor cloths is you can change them out with ease.  I like to change the color scheme in my kitchen seasonally.  I like the Tuscan colors of golden yellow, ruby red and burnt sienna for the Fall and Winter and switch out to some more beachy colors such as aqua, some soft greens etc in the Spring and Summer.

This project is fairly inexpensive.  I picked up a remnant piece of linoleum from Home Depot.  They sell them in various sizes.  Measure your kitchen floor and cut to size.  Or if you have a large kitchen leave it as it.  I have a rather small kitchen so I did have to trim down the piece I bought but is was not hard.  A good straight edge comes in handy along with a sharp pair of scissors.

  My goal was to paint a floor cloth to match my Bon Appetit sign:

You are going to work on the back of the linoleum.

First thing is base coating.  I had read somewhere that using an exterior latex was best as it has more flexibility when dried.  So that is what I went with.  I had some exterior in a white color and I rolled it on with a large roller. 



I had set up my work table (sawhorses and a sheet of plywood which was not quite wide enough so I had to slide the linoleum back and forth to paint it) under a canopy on my back deck.  Yes, this was done in the summer and right now this deck is loaded down with 4 feet of snow.  (if you want to see what it looks like around here read my post here and add a couple feet of snow) : Snowed In

With my trusty dusty ruler and straight edge I penciled my border line, laid my painters tape along it and rolled on the yellow paint.  Once dry, I penciled and taped the red inner border and painted in the red acrylic craft paint.  Red has less pigment so it may take a few coats to get the depth and coverage you need.  (this project is going to take some time as each layer needs to dry before proceeding, time frames will vary depending on conditions so set up in a area you can walk away from it for periods of time)

I then sketched up the fruit and veggies and painted them in one layer at a time. I did not even try to keep to scale, I just painted what I wanted.  I have been into Pears for some reason so I chose those as the main focal point.



I added the veggies, shadowed then highlighted until I was satisfied. 

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 But it still needed something so I added a few vines and leaves..



Ah, yes…now it is just right.   I finish it off with an exterior Varathane in Semi-Gloss (gloss and semi gloss are more water resistant than a Satin or Matte finish) so it is easily mopped clean from time to time.   I recoat it once a year with more Varathane and it is easy to touch up any areas that may get damaged from, oh I don’t know, like dropping a knife on it, point down.

Now to paint one for summer.    Enjoy your new floor!

Pamela