I really like them, but I'm not game to paint my floor boards. It just seems like it would be a tragedy to cover my aussie hardwood floorboards. But you know I would do it if I was installing new flooring into a new house. :)

smooth & shiny hardwood floors in general are impossible to keep clean, in my opinion, regardless of the color. i swept and mopped *yesterday* and i can currently see all kinds of dirt on my bamboo floor right now. ugh.

i think one of the problems with white floors is not only the flooring, but the spaces between. i would prefer less texture over more texture. i'm not sure i'm convinced about the texture hiding dirt. hiding in plain sight, i guess?

thanks for the low-down - deep in my heart I already knew white floors are too high maintenance for me! My douglas fir is bad enough, fluffy in a minute!

texture absolutley hides dirt; just like flat paint hides imperfections and gloss paint highlights them.

I did a white floor after much contemplating and apartment therapy browsing. Some people say its sacrilige to paint hardwood but I tore down walls and there were gaps in the flooring and took out a tile floor and replaced it with wood that would not have matched the original hardwood, they were also in rough shape.

I loved it, made my place feel like a gallery and was the envy of so many people, it does get dirty, just stay on top of the cleaning, (swiffer wet jet, hate to advertise for them but they really work).....

I know an owner of a store with white floors and he says you just have to stay on top of cleaning and build up the layers by painting another layer each spring.

having white floors has inspired me to try to paint them a colour, maybe some sorta teal! or purple!

I repainted my apartment's dusky blue kitchen floors white when I moved in, and I've had a mixed experience. They are quite high-maintenance, especially if you've got dogs (I have 2 huskies) or plan on whiting out a high-traffic, high-mess area like a kitchen. That said, with a fresh coat of paint every spring and a 5-minute once-daily sweep and mop with a little vinegar and water, they look fantastic. there's no question I'd have stuck with natural wood if stripping had been an option, but the paint job was a simple solution for me to an ugly shade of painted blue floor.

With any hardwood or resilient flooring dirt and hair is there and will be more noticeable with light or dark floors.

Its like having a glass dining table you will see the prints and marks vs a wood table you will see less, the dirt and marks are still there.

The issue with painting plywood or plywood substrate is
that plywood underlayment is made from softwoods like fir or poplar, and these just aren't hard enough to stand up to scratches (caused by moving furniture) or dents (caused by furniture or dropping things). They will attract more dirt because they do not hold a finish on them as good as other wood floors or resilient floors do, most flooring materials need a finish (sealer).

A good alternative if you want white floors and much easier to up keep is vinyl flooring. It will wear better but still needs to be sealed.

ooooh! I am afraid of white floors for the simple reason that it get dirty very easily. But this.. wow, now I'm wishing I had our floors done in white!

So pretty. Thanks for giving an honest review.

By the way... your puppy likes to sneak sticks into the kitchen. He doesn't like's to sneak them.

I absolutely love the look of painted white hardwood floors. But for resale in my area (DC Metro), I think this would literally freak out potential buyers.

Thank goodness you didn't get the gloss finish - eek! Thanks for the report I have always wondered how easy they would be to live with as well.

20 years ago I had my NYC wood floors painted white-on-white in a faux linoleum pattern with touches of grey tones. My painters told me they would look even better when worn down and scuffed but they never got that far as I didn't wear shoes inside and had no pets. I love the way they looked!

I've had white floors in my NYC apt., though not in the kitchen, for 23 years. The difference is they were pickled, then poly'd - not painted. It was all the rage in the 80's. It is time to re-do them and I'm going to have it done the same way. It brightens the whole place up and no harder to clean than the oak floor in the bedroom.

You must not have kids if you're shocked about that much dirt in 24 hours!

I have white floors throughout my NY apartment. With a "no shoes" policy they still look great after 3 years. The floors are concrete painted with four coats of brilliant white garage paint. They make the place look spacious and light even on the dullest of winter days and I would not hesitate to do it again. They are very easy to keep clean precisely because you can see the dust and dirt easily and sweep it up.

i have white tile floors in the bathroom (they were there when we bought the house) and i would never do white floors again...especially with three people with dark hair (two of whom have long hair)...i think the best color for a bathroom floor would be slate gray or similar.

i have slate and because of the uneven surface it traps a lot more dirt. the grouting is a pain to clean too.
i'd rip it all up and install hardwood in a heatbeat if i had the budget right now.

They're lovely, but I would never do it. I have a black-and-white checkered kitchen floor right now, and while I find it totally charming, the white squares are a pain in the you-know-what to keep clean.

White floors are not dirtier than any other floor, they just show you where the dirt is more quickly. Having had white floors in the past has made me clean my hardwood floors a lot more! Even if I cannot see it, I know the dirt is there...

hesiod, I dream of the day I can have stained concrete or cement floors. My husband thinks I'm nuts, but I think besides the durability the treatment looks interesting.

White floors, black floors - I've considered them both and I hear what a horror they are to clean. I do not clean everyday. I would say I'm working on that habit but my nose would start growing. One day maybe.

In Norway, where houses are traditionally made of wood, white or light grey floors are very popular. Shoes are never worn inside a house (its very rude).

I had one at my place in the kitchen (while the living room was natural wood colour) and I found it was the lint from my socks that accumulated. I'm also a big fan of swiffers.

The paint (Jotun) used is an acrylic base I think, really thick, glossy and resistant. The interesting thing is it seals the spaces between the boards, but the movement of the floorboards make it crack. It also hides the defects of my old floorboards.

Hey, a friend and I were just talking about white floors this morning! Were you listening?! When I was too broke to put down "real" kitchen flooring, I painted the boards [I'll leave out all the details about pulling up the old linoleum, etc.] with porch and deck enamel. I first used white, but floor "came at me" visually as if I'd raised the floor several inches! I repainted it the color of maple-icing-on-a-donut, which looked beautiful w/the adjoining rooms' oak floors.

White floors are the devil of dirt in disguise. My floors never ever look entirely clean, and I clean them on my hands and knees. Don't do it! I have sworn that if I ever have a choice, I will never have a white floor, especially in the kitchen.

Never had a white floor, but had a dark espresso hardwood floor and will never do it again! We don't wear shoes in the house, but with a child and a cat, we had to swiffer just about every other day to keep the place looking respectably clean.

Darker floors won't help the situation. I had black linoleum floors in every room of my last apartment. Even after sweeping daily, every speck of dust and lint was visible. Blech!

Ooh I love this post! I want to know more about the bleached wood now! Come on, is it better than white painted wood? Somebody tell us! I want the answer to be yes! We've had white tile, too, and I second the never-again sentiment on that one. Photographs like a dream, white, though, sigh....

Our beach cottage has white wooden floors. The original floors were pine, and not especially pretty, and since there were a few dark spots left from untreated pet stains, I wanted to do something different. Here's the good and bad:

The Good
1. The walls and trim and ceiling are all painted white, so the white floors make the space feel much larger, plus all the white is a good foil for splashes of color;

2. It is bright, friendly, and cheerful, which makes getting there on the weekends something to look forward to;

3. It's different. 'Nuff said.

The Bad:
1. We intentionally do not have grass in our yard - maintenance and the fact we're at the beach made me want to have a sand yard (xeriscaping? who knew!); however, a lot of sand gets tracked in so cleaning the floors is an ongoing issue;

2. It shows dirt - badly. Hmmm...cleaning.

We painted the floors with a one-part epoxy. I clean them with warm water and bleach. Did I mention cleaning?

Conclusion for me: I love my floors at the beach but would not want to live with them every single day.

Here's the link to our cottage:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/house-tours/house-tour-mike-and-angelas-weekend-escape-kill-devil-hills-nc-091495

Hope this helps!

In my apartment I have multiple types of flooring. The kitchen has a dark brown linoleum that looks like wood, tan carpet in the living area, and white tiles in the entry way. (Very typical rental standards)

While I like the way the white tile looks, it seems to show dirt much more quickly. It's a very small area, about 4ft by 4ft, and I spend quite a bit of time cleaning that floor. Here is the thing, when I mop the linoleum in the kitchen, if there is a stray puppy hair, or fleck of dirt, I may never notice it. But the white tile must be immaculate to look good. It's pretty, and pretty annoying.

I have "opened up" the feel of many a room by painting the floors white!

i just bought my apt and it had white birch-like laminate flooring throughout. i couldn't afford to replace all the flooring, just in the bedrooms where the flooring was in bad shape. the kitchen and living room are still white and my loose dark hairs and the city's dust drive me crazy. BUT they're rampant in the spice-colored bamboo bedrooms as well as the kitchen and living room, so i just have to commit to swiffering the entire place often. that said, i chose espresso-colored cabinets for my new kitchen and the contrast looks pretty great.

not quite done with the place yet, but you can see the floors here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/monakwon/sets/72157623146172499/

We have white floors in our apartment - glossy/oil paint. The problem isn't with cleaning them it's with scratches that happen in the paint - the dirt gets pushed in and mopping doesn't do anything. So when you mop you get a white floor with lots of dirty scratches. Magic Eraser helps but it buffs out the "shine" of the oil paint. NExt time I'd go with pickling.

I have painted white stairs and landing and I love them. I do notice the hair and debris sooner than on a wood stained floor but, I love how bright and cheerful they look. I am considering painting moreof my floors. Thanks for the honest review.

The white painted wood floor in the kids room (that they never use) was our only decorating fail.

Despite numerous topcoats, the paint chipped really easily and the white is turning yellow despite being less than a year old.

Where did we go wrong?

I painted (white) the damaged-beyond-repair wood floors in my rental a few years ago and love, love, love them. They really brightened up my dark little bedroom that gets no direct sun, and give the whole place an airy feel. A new coat every year is a good idea.

White floors are as bad as expresso floors. I have dark wood floors for the first time, and they show every little bit of dust. I have to clean them everyday.

White or red oak floors do not show dirt. I don't understand it. I never really appreciated my house with it's beautiful red and white oak floors. They just never showed dirt.

I would never have gotten these expresso floors if I had known they would show so much dirt and dust. I had a kitchen with a white floor, and it was a nightmare. I had to mop it everyday to keep it clean.

I have two rooms in which the wooden floors have already been painted. The first time, the color was a grim dark brown -- think 1950s car seat. Ugh. Then the floors were re-painted a medium gray-green around 1980; could have been worse! I plan on re-painting them a very light neutral grayish taupe, though a deeper green such as BM's Alligator Alley is also tempting.

The rooms are bedrooms, so they should stay reasonably clean.

Below the paint is, I think, perfectly decent oak floors. But both coats of paint are super heavy duty oil-based enamel and would not be easy to get off. The paint may also contain lead. :(

Forgot to mention; when I re-paint the floors, I'm going to put a coat of clear poly (or something like it) over the paint. Should make it much easier to clean, and I can get the exact gloss level I want.

I don't have white -or black- floors but after reading these interesting comments --OMG I have to go clean them RIGHT NOW! Seriously...

Rayma, I thought about painting my kitchen floor in Alligator Alley. That's a great color!

The same goes for pitch black floors. I have black bathroom flooring - and two white cats. Not a good combo. The white hairs show so much AND the cat litter is pale gray as well, so just a few grains from one visit to the "outhouse" from one of my little kitties and the floor looks like it hasn't been swept for days on end.
Thankfully it's a tiny bathroom ;o)

I plan on doing white wood "laminate" floors in my daughters room with behr's "refreshing pool" on the walls and cieling(it's a sloped ceiling, very low). I can't wait!