So here is how you do it:
The hardest part of any floor design is the planning part. I had my parent floor dimensions, and they have a small hall that leads into the room that we needed to make sure aligned with the design and the pattern ended evenly.
I drew the room in CAD, and started playing around with scale for the pattern shape until I had a size that fell evenly across the room. (You can download Inkscape- a free program similar to Adobe Illustrator that will allow you to plan your floor)
I measured the pattern repeat in CAD and found my shape will need to be 42" tall x 38" wide with a 2" spacing in between. I found four large old paint chips that I could cut and make my template with. (You can also use poster board or cardboard- I just didn't have any large enough)
I divided the numbers in half and measured & marked the chips along the edges... 21" up on the left side and 19" in along the bottom edge. I then freehand sketched the edge of my design connecting these two points, and then cut along the line...
I traced the cutout on the three other pieces and cut them out as well. Next I taped them all together:
until I had a complete shape:
Then it was time to draw the pattern on the floor. Always start in the center of your floor so your edges are balanced and even. My Dad and I traced the shaped, leaving a 2" space between.
It gets a little tricky to explain, so I colorized the floor layout here...
First we traced the green shapes on.
Once that was done we placed the stencil in between and traced again (blue areas) and the lines for the white trellis came into being...
(My shape actually overlapped in some places and I freaked out because it didn't fit perfectly inside the green like I thought it would since I freehanded it. It was FINE though because once I traced it the trellis lines were still there)
Once the lines were done it was time to paint.
A good paint brush is SO important. I used a wide angled artist brush and regular white ceiling paint to fill in the lines:
This took about 2 hours...
and then using a GOOD lining brush we traced the white lines with a soft blue/ grey:
This went faster.
And then we were done and in need a chiropractor!
My parents wanted an aged distressed floor, so they hit it with sandpaper in areas to soften it and then added three coats of a latex polyurethane to seal it.
And once it was cured (3 days) they started moving back in...
My Mom wanted me to wait until the room was put back together, but I am impatient and snapped some pictures last night as I helped them carry the be back in.
Best part is the before!
When they bought the house it had PINK tile floors in here. Here is a picture from the MLS listing:
and besides the fact of it being pink, it is also really COLD!
This is New England, not Florida:
So I think all my father's back breaking work of ripping it out laying the wood floor was totally with it!
Much better:
