The Budget-Friendly Floor Hack Leanne Ford Would “Do Over and Over Again”

I don’t want to knock coffee table books that are all about pretty interior images of designer projects, because inspiration is important. But every once in a while, a design book will come along and you just know that it’s cut from a different cloth. It has pretty pictures in spades, sure, but alongside them you also get practical advice, instructions on how to actually achieve certain looks, and — in the rarest of cases — the encouragement you might need to believe you can really try something new (or try something at all). That’s exactly how I would describe designer Leanne Ford’s latest release, Feel Free Home: The Art of Free Thinking Design, which is available today.

Feel Free Home is as much a practical decorating manual as it is pages after pages of design eye candy. But it’s never prescriptive or preachy; Leanne will give you her smartest tips and DIY directions, but she’ll encourage you to listen to your own intuition and improvise along the way. 

Case in point: Her approach to checkerboard floors, which toe the line between trendy and timeless but can be expensive when professionally painted (or tiled, for that matter). Unlike most checkerboard floor tutorials, though, Ford’s method actually embraces imperfection and is surprisingly simple. The trick? She never uses tape.

Turns out both the pantry and bathroom at Ford’s Pennsylvania home, as seen here, feature freeform, hand-painted checkerboard floors — and that’s 100% by choice. “They are far from perfect — uneven lines, brush marks, little imperfections everywhere — but that’s exactly why I love them,” Ford told me in an email interview about Feel Free Home for my Substack, Design Defined. “I specifically made sure they weren’t done with tape because I wanted them to feel perfectly imperfect. There’s something really special about seeing the human touch in a home.”

Ford loves the look of what some might call “wonky” checkerboard flooring so much that she’s used this approach several times, and often opts to do it when the floors themselves are looking a little worse for wear. It’s a great strategy, when you think about it; if your “canvas” is a little bit flawed, leaning into that only adds to the charm and character. 

“Honestly, we did this as a budget-friendly hack initially to give new life to a few areas where the flooring had seen better days, but I didn’t want to pay to fully replace them,” Ford explained. “And considering it only cost me the price of a can of paint and a paintbrush, it’s become one of my favorite moments in the house. I’d do it over and over again.”

Although she doesn’t tape her checkerboards, Ford still follows a thoughtful process. And that’s where Feel Free Home comes in. She’s included her “recipe” for this type of floor treatment in the book, along with so many other design musings. 

You’ll have to pick up a copy for the rest of her trade secrets. But trust me: It’ll be well-worth it. The book stands as a way to help you out of your biggest decorating conundrums, with Leanne as your cheerleader.