LESLIE: Patty in Minnesota listens to The Money Pit on KDUZ. And you want to know what kind of paint to use on the bathroom floor. So, why do you want to paint the bathroom floor?
PATTY: Well, we have… we bought an old house and it has … it has a wooden floor in the bathroom.
LESLIE: Okay.
PATTY: And we want to paint it and we want to make sure that we have the right paint to put on it that, you know, like when they take showers and stuff that …
LESLIE: What condition is the wood floor in? Because that’s a really moist environment.
PATTY: It’s not too bad, actually. Yeah, it was covered up with tar paper and linoleum. And so it’s in pretty good shape.
TOM: Is it a … is it like a tongue and groove floor? Would it look decent painted as … or is it plywood? I mean what are you looking at?
PATTY: Yeah, it’s a tongue and groove floor.
TOM: Alright. Well here’s … let me give you a trick of the trade for this. This is where we sometimes take a material that’s not necessarily designed for the space but makes a whole lot of sense.
LESLIE: (overlapping) And make it work.
PATTY: Uh-huh.
TOM: Yeah. I’m thinking porch floor paint here, Leslie.
LESLIE: Yeah.
TOM: Because porch floor paint is designed to be incredibly durable. It’s oil-based, by the way; it’s not latex paint.
LESLIE: (overlapping) Mm-hmm. You’re going to want an oil base; otherwise, if you ever … even if you use a high-gloss latex paint in a bathroom, which is supposed to be good for moist environments, you get that running color … like discoloration on it. It’s because it still has the condensation rolling on it. But if you use an oil base, it will really stand up to it.
TOM: Yeah, and with all of the technology and all the improvements to latex paint, the one thing that oil based paint is still better at is abrasion. It’s just a harder surface. So I would recommend that you sand down that floor – you know, you can sand it by hand so you get rid of all the loose paint. Then use an oil based primer; like a KILZ primer. And then use a porch floor paint; oil based. And you can get any color you want; you can have them mix any color you want.
LESLIE: I think you should do a checkerboard.
TOM: You can a checkerboard. Yep. You can do something really fancy.
LESLIE: And a checkerboard looks really fun in bathrooms; especially if you leave the opposite part of the checkerboard … paint some squares and leave some squares the wood grain. And then, when you put like an acrylic top coat on it, that wood will become really glossy and pretty. So then, you have this nice contrast between the paint and the wood.
TOM: There you go.
PATTY: That’d be cool. That’s a good idea. Thanks.
TOM: Alright. Well, that’s what we do. We’re the good idea people. (laughing) Patty, good luck with it.
PATTY: Oh, well thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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