Re-painting warped kitchen floor...??

Our house has no foundation (as in no concrete type of foundation) and its settling into the ground which is causing the floor boards to warp and distort. There was also some problems with the roof leaking, which also added to the floor becoming warped. As you can see from the pictures, there are cracks and crevices along the floor boards and underneath our cabinets. The cabinets were installed on top of a layer of flooring that was eventually ripped out by a previous tenant. My boyfriend is going to cut and clean up as much of that top layer of flooring as much as possible to make it look a little neater and I planned on using caulking to fill in the gaps along the bottom of the cabinets.

I also wanted to use the caulking to fill in the cracks in the floor boards and along the walls. Keep in mind that these are only temporary fixes. I'm well aware that what the floors really need is to be ripped out and replaced but we can't afford to do that right now and I'm simply trying to make our kitchen look as nice as possible. The previous tenants had painted the kitchen floors so people could walk bare-foot across them and thats basically what I'm tryin to do as well... so here are my questions:

1. Aside from scrubbing down the floors and sanding the areas where we applied the caulking, is there any other prep work we should also do? Example... will we need to sand the entire kitchen floor before painting?

2. Because the floors had been painted before, will we need to use primer before we paint in order to get the color we choose for the floor?

3. Whats the best paint to use for this kind of project? I've seen advertisements on TV for a paint used on decks and porches that's supposed to help fill in smalls cracks and seal in any splinters or rough patches of wood... I think its a Behr paint but I'm not sure. I want to be able to choose the color of the paint (a dark grey) rather than have to purchase a color similar to wood.

Any advice and suggestions will be welcomed As I said before, I'm well aware that the floors need to be replaced - they're pretty rough, I know - but until we can afford to replace them, I just want to make our home look as nice as possible. Thank you

Welcome to the site.

First question is: is it your home or are you renting? You may have some major projects coming up - some of which may not be in the interest of a renter.

When you say "caulk", I hope you're thinking 'wood filler', as most caulks will be hard to cover, may not dry hard, and generally wouldn't be appropriate for filling gaps in a floor. I think you will end up sanding the whole floor, and you may have to go down to the bare wood, depending on what kind of paint the previous folks used.

Yikes. I would say that getting the roof leak fixed is the highest priority because that can lead to mold and irreparable damage. I was going to say you could throw an area rug over the floor, but it looks like there is too much area.

You may also want to check out http://flooringforum.com/forum/ if you haven't already. A lot of us are over there as well and there are some people who specialize in floors.

What you should do is figure out how much wood putty you will need and how much it will cost, how much paint you will need and what it will cost and then compare it to the price of other flooring options such as vinyl plank.

It might be worth your while to sand the paint off of the floors, fill them, and then paint instead of painting over paint because its possible that even with primer, the paint will start to flake up.

Also, it will let you know just how bad the wood is. If its rotted all the way through it can become dangerous.

Carefull with suggestions of sanding, looks like the house could be old enough to have lead paint if there are layers below what the last guy did. When a proper floor goes in the first step would be to add plywood, I would just cover this with 5/8 sanded t&g now and paint that. Add a show molding around cupbards instead of chaulk.

I think if it were me, and I couldn't move, I would seriously consider using inexpensive sheet vinyl to just cover everything up.

Clean the floor good with spic n span or similar with a good scrub brush rinse it several times and let it dry. Buy a pot of a product made by the Elmer’s Glue folks called carpenters wood filler. Buy the size you think you will need because it doesn’t keep that well once opened. Put it in the large cracks with a putty knife, let dry and sand lightly wipe it up. Get a gallon of floor paint it only comes in a few colors but grey is one of them and if you need darker they should be able to add a little (lamp black) pigment to darken it but if you do remember how much in case you need to buy it again. Paint it on with a brush because that will let you work it in the cracks. And enjoy.

I have lived in a lot of old places that needed a lot of major work I couldn’t afford to do. I understand wanting to spruce it up for the time being. When you have the time and the cash start with the roof and get the leaks stopped first. Then deal with the foundation.

Base board around where you have the crack might be an idea.

Ooh, good point about the lead in paint, neal. I forgot about that.

Don't they sell little kits to test for the presence of lead? If any of that paint will be removed, then it should be checked for lead.

I would use a piece of vinyl like Flexitec to cover it. Very DIY friendly.

Thank you all for your advice and suggestions! I have permission to do whatever I'd like to the house as far as cosmetic patch work is concerned and whatever else I can afford to repair. Major repairs will have to wait. Right now I'm just tryin to get the place looking livable, if you get my drift but "livable" on a tight budget

The house is old but what you see in the pictures is the original floor when that part of the house was built. There was at least one or two layers of flooring on top of that but a previous tenant ripped it off and then ditched before laying down any new flooring. The last tenants here used packing tape to cover the cracks and then used a Walmart paint called Color Place to paint the floor in attempt to spruce up the place, like what I'm trying to do now. We haven't seen any signs of rotting yet but we'll be sure to double check now that you've mentioned it.

I really wanted to keep that wood floor feeling in the kitchen and would prefer to just paint the floors but after doing some research on sheet/tile vinyl flooring I may hold off on that until we can completely replace the floors and just cover them with vinyl for now. Either way I'll have to prep the floors whether we paint or use vinyl. I'll definitely look into wood putty or filler rather then caulking. I only considered caulking because I'd see a couple use caulk before painting their wood floors in a blog I read.

I guess sanding the floors would be ideal no matter which we choose, right?? Our kitchen is rather large and that would be a lot of sanding by hand... any particular tool y'all can suggest that won't cost us an arm and a leg? Thanks again for all of your suggestions!!

Since it's not your place, get an area rug. You can roll it up and take it with you when you go.

Sanding the floors is a big job and not required if you just want to paint them up for a few years. if you are going with new flooring sanding isn’t required as you will be laying down some kind of underlayment and then flooring. The only reason to sand them is if you wanted to go for a primitive wood floor look and some people find that quite attractive. You need to rent a sander to do that there are two types the drum sander and the vibrating pad sander. Both are big and will be close to the size of a push mower. The drum sander is faster and more aggressive and also less forgiving of a DIY. I just used a 2 foot square vibrating samder and did about 500 sq foot in our old house over a weekend. Some was painted some varnish and some bare wood. It takes quite a bit of time to get that old paint off. In my case there was nice 100 year old chestnut flooring under the paint. If you do sand you should be careful of what type of paint it is as you make a lot of dust and you need to wear proper masks depending on what you have.

I have done two floors in my life both old homes the first was pine and turned out ok but wasn’t worth the time and effort to save it and later put new floors over it. This last one turned out really nice and glad I took the time to save it.

You have to be careful with those floor sanders. They can really get away from you. I've seen footage of people loosing control when trying to use them.

If you decide to go with vinyl sheet or linoleum, you can check out surplus places or Habitat for Humanity ReStore to find supplies for less expense. The latter doesn't always have what you're seeking, but its worth a look since they tend to have very good prices on things. I found some doorknobs that were normally $30 for $2 there. They sometimes have extra flooring and such. (The ReStore sells stuff that was donated to them from when houses were demolished/renovated or when people had extra stuff leftover after a renovation). If it wasn't such a large area, I'd say you could look for remnants at some stores because those are usually less expensive.