Do it right - Replace the floor.
You won't regret it.

Here is a link to DIY on how to paint it- looks like you could do a stencil or a design as well- that could be cool- good luck.
http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-paint-vinyl-flooring/index.html

Bepsf is right. Replace the floor. especially if there is a wave in the floor, i would imagine the paint would endure more wear and stress in those areas and probably look worse than whatever linoleum you have in place now. If it were me, I would employ a stop gap in the meantime with some durable Flor carpet squares or some sort of mat until you can devote the time and resources to a more permanent solution.

Also, to Bepsf, I totally want to have drinks with you sometime if you are ever in Los Angeles. We agree on a lot of things and your viewpoint always make me smile or laugh! Anyhoo. Cheers! -E

http://x-marks-the-stock.com/

Having lived in a house with aq painted linoleum floor... NO!

I'm sure somewhere you will find something that will say that if you sand off the gloss on the linoleum and use the right primer and paint it will work. Those people are liars.

A kitchen floor gets a massive amount of wear and tear. Hot pans are dropped, heavy things fall, tons of standing and walking in a tight traffic pattern. Add chairs scraping back and forth and the paint will not wear well.

Pulling up a linoleum floor can start all kinds of problems, like finding asbestos underneath. The wave could be the plywood floor expanding from a long gone water leak, or two pieces popping apart. Plus you have to move the refrigerator and range, which requires a plumber if it's gas.

I restore homes as an avocation, and the first thing I would do is call Benjamin Moore. They have taught me more about surfaces and how to deal with them than I can list. I can make aluminum look like wrought iron, I can pit and stain concrete, I can clean decades of paint off of hinges without touching them, I can restore plaster, I can restore counter tops of all types, I can stain and seal floors, and what I learned about painting is much too much to list. I could go on and on, and my local Benjamin Moore store taught me how and provided the products.

You are right, you will need a good primer. And always use two coats. The work is in the surface preparation, not the painting. Lightly sand and smooth between the two coats. After you have primed and painted, you will need to seal the floor. I'd use three coats. And remember, you have to stay out of the kitchen the whole time to allow the primer or paint or sealant to completely dry before the next step or you walk on the floors. It takes about 48 hours for paint to set well. So plan on eating out, or set up a microwave & coffee pot kitchen in another room to get you through. Good luck. It's fun, and nothing is more cost effective than a coat of paint.

PS Given that this is a kitchen floor, the first thing you are going to need to do is get it brand new clean. I suggest a degreaser, like Arm & Hammer Degreaser. It sprays on and works like magic. It will make the goo on a range hood slide right off. After the floor is degreased, it needs to be rinsed really well and allowed to dry before you proceed. And remember, if anyone walks on the floor after cleaning but before starting, you'll have to clean it again. When you are staining, painting, or sealing floors, every bit of dirt you miss will be forever glued to the floor. Don't forget to dry clean the floor very carefully between each coat.

(In the last dining room floor I stained and sealed, a long red strand of my naturally curly hair runs across the floor. It's a red oak floor stained in a dark mahogany/cherry mix, so it's hard to see, but I know it's there.)

@goodall --

Thanks for that!

I was just in LA this past weekend celebrating my B'Day - If you saw a sunburned guy rolling around Hollywood/Silverlake in a Chrysler convertible or a bunch of guys whooping it up poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel drinking our Sunday brunch, that was me!

No, I wouldn't paint it - that rarely turns out well!

Is the curve in the floor a recent development? If so, that needs dealing with, like it or not.

If not, and as, from the looks of it, it was a well-laid, expensive floor when it was first put down, the best solution might be just to put down a new floor over the top of it.

I expect, if done carefully, according to product manufacturer's instructions, you could paint the lino where it extend up the wall.

Good luck!

Another option, rather than painting or completely redoing, is to use those stick-on tiles you can get at places like Home Depot. I did this once in a place I was selling, and it really freshened it up. It basically looks like tiles of linoleum, and if you get a nice pattern it can look pretty good. It's not as cheap as paint, but definitely cheaper than a redo. You can stick them right on top of the existing linoleum.

I would live with the ugliest lino flooring before I would paint it. You will likely want to replace it in the future and trying to remove it post paint will probably make the job that much more difficult.

If it's actual real linoleum I would try to appreciate its vintage uniqueness. If it's sheet vinyl, don't even try to paint it. Why waste so many resources on something that isn't right to begin with? You don't say whether or not you are a renter or owner. Clean it thoroughly, throw some fun rugs down, and expend your energy elsewhere. IMHO.

If you really can't live with it while you save up to do it right, you can probably cover it with peel-and-stick vinyl tile for the same cost as paint and supplies. Vinyl tiles will be more durable, faster, and less effort than painting.

And I definitely agree with the above advice to "do it right" even if you do a temp cosmetic fix now. I recently had an ugly and non-level floor replaced in my house, and found out about rotting joists and water damage only because we pulled that old floor out to fix it properly. Sucks to lay out the $$, but it would suck even more for the floor to cave in on me one day!

What is the picture with this post? Is there a source for it?

Random....yet intriguing!

Bepsf!!! You were in my neighborhood!!! I live right next to the lake. Next time buddy, I wanna hang with you and your boys, token straight girl style. Happy Birthday!!

I live in an apartment with a painted linoleum kitchen floor. The color's pretty and its worn reasonably well (as in, two years before it started showing significant wear), but it's terrible to keep clean! A solid color floor shows every speck, light or dark. Its a never ending battle with the wet Swiffer.

The paint my landlord used is some kind of fancy garage floor enamel.

(When I mentioned the peeling tiles in the bathroom before I moved in, he offered to paint those too. I declined and ended up having him reinburse me for materials to put down a new peel-n-stick floor myself.)

I dissagree with the idea to put a peel-n-stick floor ON TOP OF the current linoleum. I'd say paint it before that! I can't imagine how painting the floor will make it more difficult to remove in the future... its not like wallpaper that goes from being porous to non-porous when you paint over it. The linoleum tiles are non-porous to begin with and need to be pried up.

Sorry, another epic Ladykatey multi reply reply....

As far as prep work goes, you'll need to remove any wax or sealer on the floor. Ammonia is usually the thing to go with. I don't think it will need to be sanded or anything.

My family makes fun of me because I'm constantly painting everything. Anything I see, I try to reimagine in another color. I have painted all kinds of furniture, finished and not. I have painted laminate counters, faucets, the flusher lever on my toilet, even carpet. There is nothing I won't paint...

Except vinyl flooring. The amount of prep involved there just does not make sense. Buy some cheap, stick-on vinyl tiles to cover it up if you need a temporary solution and just can't stand what you have now. It would probably be cheaper to do that than all the money you'd spend sanding and priming and painting and sealing.

And if you decide to go the stick-on route, don't pull up the existing vinyl. The adhesive on stick-ons will stick better to that than the subfloor. We've learned this from experience.

You're going to get so many varied answers from the AT community on this, I know it wouldn't help *me* decide on this particular "Good Question".

I've Googled this subject extensively and came to my own conclusions based on my research. Knowing what I do from that research, I think it would be easier for you to do some Googling of your own and decide that way. Don't rule out painting from some of these responses-- but don't just grab a paint roller and go at it either. Decide if the work and return you get from painting the floor is really the best option in this case. There's a lot of info on painting floors out there.

Like confounded, I too have painted just about darn near everything but would not even go there with linoleum. I agree with some of the other posts--I'm sure it can be done, there are a lot of great products out there, etc. etc. With that being said. . .I have to agree about the peel and stick tiles. If you just can't live with your linoleum a second longer, I'd check out the peel & stick tiles. And I also agree that I'd put them right over the existing floor. I have done this with one of the bathrooms in my house and have never looked back. I stalked the clearance section and ended up finding tiles for about 48 cents a square foot. Am I in love with my floor? No. But for less than paint, primer, plus all of that sweat equity that I'd rather spend somewhere else, it'll do for now. It's neutral and more importantly, clean. Good luck!

I just recently painted my bathroom linoleum floor, and it looks great. I deglossed it and sanded some spots that were particularly rough. Then I primed it and rolled 2 coats of porch/deck paint on it. Everyone who sees it compliments it; however, the floor attracts dirt. I am going to clean it really well and then put a coat or 2 of polyurethane over it. It was cheaper than replacing the floor and less effort than those annoying peel and stick tiles. It may not hold up well in the long run, but it looks great right now.

I say do it. The floor in my 1940's kitchen is old school, large sheet linoleum. Having limited funds and time (I had a newborn), we decided to do paint as a "temporary" fix. Four years later, it has worn VERY well.

All I did was wash it down with TSP to remove any remaining glossiness -- though because of it's age it was pretty matte to begin with (through wear). After that, I painted it with Sherwin-Williams interior latex paint (eggshell finish) in Jonquil. It was leftover from painting my cabinets. Two coats (applied two separate nights) and we were finished. I originally intended to do a fun stencil or pattern (and I still might), but haven't gotten around to it.

I will agree with ladykatey, and say that as a solid light color, it does look dirty pretty quickly. (I have three cats, a hubby, and four year old so all my floors tend to look dirty quickly.) However, it is super easy to clean, sweep/swiffer, wet mop, and it's done.

Although I still would love to eventually do new flooring or have it ripped up and finish the hardwood floors that I *think* are unfinished underneath, I do enjoy the burst of color and the additional canvas for creativity as I would never paint my hardwoods.

-Abby

When my parents were young and broke, and we were little and messy, our 1890's-era house had real and real ugly linoleum on the kitchen floor. My parents painted it several times before they could afford to replace it.

I don't know what paint they used, but their method was pretty smart: they put a dark color down first (I think it was a near-navy blue) and then used a very porous sponge cut through and dabbed an all-over random pattern on top in a lighter color (I think that was cream). When the high-traffic areas wore, the cream layer could be replenished with a little more dabbing, to get another year or whatever out of it.

It's a very 40's, 50's look and will tide you over quite well.

I painted my kitchen floor with hi-gloss enamal because someone (grrrr) thought peel and stick tiles would be a quick solution to the flooring situation. My experience in two different houses has been that some tiles stick and some tiles peel and once that happens the only thing to do is to lay another layer of plywood over the whole mess and start over. In the meanwhile, the paint at least provides a uniform color surface until a better solution can be afforded. I tried porch paint first, but I didn't like the flatter finish. The hi-gloss looks more like a waxed floor and when wear shows it is easy to touch up with another coat of paint.

I'd try http://www.linoleumlacquer.com
Easy prep, lots of colors and our bathroom floor is holding up great after 9 months and its looks fab, kind of like a rich polished concrete floor (we used a gray color).

I am assuming it's your bungalow and not someone else's (i.e. landlord/landlady).

If this were me, I would start all over. This way, I would be 100% free to lay out whatever I want, not be constricted by what I have to work with.