How to Stencil Your Floor Tiles With Frenchic

This is a post that I have been meaning to do for months, but I wanted to wait for a while to test out the paints durability on a well used floor first. During lockdown, DIY has gone through the roof and I was no exception to this. I have hated our hallway tiles since we bought the house, but we have made do with them, until now. During lockdown I decided to give them a revamp with Frenchic Al Fresco paint. If this is something you have considered doing, then keep reading.So, let's jump straight into it. The first, and most hardest part, is choosing your paint colours. I only use Frenchic Al Fresco as it's more durable, and decided to go for a neutral palette with Dazzle Me and Swanky Pants. Along with the paint, I also purchased their Finishing Coat and Stencil Brush, along with a regular paint roller. You will also need a stencil of your choice - I had mine from eBay for about £15.00. Along with the paints, you will also need a few other items to get you started; Frogtape (ideally the yellow one - they didn't have any in stock when I picked mine up), sugar soap, a cloth, and some sandpaper.

Selecting your Stencil 

• Take your time when picking a stencil - make sure that you love it.

• Measure your floor tiles to ensure that your stencil fits - generally order your stencil a cm or two a little bigger than your tile.
• There are so many stencil websites that you can order from, although Etsy and eBay both have them available to purchase and usually a fair bit cheaper.
  

Preparation

Before you can even think of painting, you will need to prep your tiles. This is how I prepped mine:

• I gave them a good brush, hoover and mopping first, then dried them off with a towel.
• Next, I lightly sanded each tile to give the paint something to cling onto.
• Once the sanding was done, I cleaned them over with sugar soap; this helped to get up any marks that were on the tiles. Once cleaned with sugar soap, I dried them off again with a towel.
• The Frogtape was used to go around the edges, although I wasn't too fussed over this as I would be using the same paint to freshen up my skirting boards too. 

Base coat

• First up is your base coat - for ours I used Dazzle Me which is a bright white colour. To apply the base coat, I used a small paint roller. I cannot stress enough, that with this paint you do not need a lot of it at all. Use little amounts otherwise you won't get a good result with it.
• Before I went ahead and used a roller, I went over the grouting of the tiles with a paint brush and a small amount of paint. If your grout isn't too dark you may be able to get away without doing this.
   
  
• Once the grouting is complete, you can go ahead and get your roller out to apply your first layer of your base coat. 
• When the first layer goes down, you will panic. It will look patchy and terrible. It is meant to look like this, I swear!
  

•  Once the first layer is down, you will need to let this dry - usually it takes about 1-2 hours for this.
•  Once this layer is dry, it is then time to roll on the second layer. You will be able to see a massive difference between the coverage compared to the first layer. You will need to keep repeating these steps until the base layer is even; due to the colour of my floor tiles and the paint colour, it took four layers of paint to achieve this.

• Once your base coat is completed and dry, you can make a start on your stenciling. If you do not have time, like me, then make sure that you cover your floor with sheets to avoid any damage.

•  Now for the fun part - the stenciling. Line up your stencil on your tile and hold it in place with a small amount of tape.
• When it comes to painting the stencil, add a small amount of paint to your stencil brush and dab the paint onto the stencil - do not use brush strokes or a sponge as the paint will bleed through underneath the stencil.
• You will likely need a couple of coats per stencil. How you do this is up to you; personally, I left the stencil in place and waited for the paint to dry before going back over the stencil with the second coat. It did take a lot more time but, during lockdown, I had a lot of time on my hands so I didn't mind too much.

• A little tip would be to work from the middle of the room outwards, that way you can ensure that the stencils are straight too.
• Once each tile is dry you can then move onto the next one. It is advised to clean the stencil after each tile, but I didn't bother. I ended up peeling the paint off the stencil after every 10 tiles or so and this worked well for me.

• Once the stenciling is complete and dry, you can go around any bleeding with a fine paintbrush and your base coat colour.
• Once dry, you can go ahead and seal your floor with the Finishing Coat. For this I used a roller brush and did around 4 coats as this is a high traffic area; a minimum of 2 coats would be essential.
• Even after your finishing coats have been applied and dried, I would still advise to cover your floor for a few weeks in order for the paint to cure. This will help to avoid any damage such as chipping.
  

 

And there you have it! A brand new floor for a fraction of the cost. I had originally priced up new tiles in a similar pattern for our hallway and had a quote of about £400. This didn't include the cost of removing the old tiles, leveling the floor etc. Overall I saved hundreds of pounds doing this; granted it took longer but I found it rather therapeutic.

I would love to know if any of you have taken the plunge and stenciled your floor!