help with floorboards: waterproofing in bathroom, painting, etc.

[no eye deer]

Hi all, we are building a Prebuilt kit home with a floor space of 81m2. This will include a bathroom (2mx3m) which will have a bath with shower over it, and a laundry area.

We would like to have a continuous floorboard theme throughout the whole space so floorboards in the bathroom. I have some questions regarding this:

1. Can you have painted floorboards in a bathroom (will have 2 small kids plus adults/guests)? Can you protect them from swelling, splitting and warping? We want to limewash the boards, or paint them white or black.

2. As we want to paint the boards and then use rugs for warmth/protection, what is the best wood for floorboards? We are happy to use a cheaper timber (so long as its really durable) as we will be painting it so not needing the natural wood to be particularly beautiful itself.

Also, ecotimber suggestions would be best thanks!!
Really appreciate any feedback on this...
cheers

[InterTD6]

The only ( aust') timber I know that you could possibly think of doing that is celery top pine, but then you have the problems of no falls to floor wastes & water getting out the door onto the other flooring which would cause big problems then.
regards inter

[artme]

G'day no eye deer and welcome to the workshop.:2tsup::2tsup:

Inter has summed up your situation pretty well.

You might try a parquet type pattern for the bathroom floor to get fall to floor wastes. Any sealing/painting would need to include and grain. All floor wastes would need to be well sealed with Silicone compounds.

I hope you are not planning a timber floor for the shower recess. As good as some modern sealers and varnishes are the effect of soap and water will take fairly quick toll.

[Sigidi]

Welcome No eye deer!!:)

Artme - as mentioned shower is over bathtub, which would negate need for shower recess...

No eye deer, conventional thinking would be to persuade you away from this option. Timber is hygroscopic, it moves with changes in moisture, sometimes an alarming amount. I presume you are on stumps for your house? If so, you need to protect your floorboards from the bathroom water, but you also have to be aware of the outside moisture creating movement in your floorboards,(as the underside of your floorboards will be exposed to the outside moisture) possibly creating issues with whatever sealant you use 'in' the bathroom.

The simplest answer would be no you can't do it, but in honesty, you could create fall to a central floor waste, if you where prepared to lay your bathroom, separately to the rest of the house flooring and also in a four sided pattern, so your joists would need to be placed in a pattern to suit, so this would mean your bearers for the bathroom and ultimately posts too. This would get the fall to a floor waste sorted, then you need to apply water proofing membrane product to the floor. This stuff totally disguises there are floorboards underneath as it ends up being a 'solid rubber membrane' and in my experience comes in 'blues' but it could be painted over.

If the boss was wanting to do it at our place (as we are doing everything ourselves and we're supplying our own timber) I could do it, but the time involved and the look you seem to be wanting wouldn't occur.

I guess I'm saying you can do it, but it'd be a lot of extra work and may not give you the look you might be after...?

[Horaldic]

You could do it using Celery Top or Huon Pine, but I'd consider it a waste of timber from rare species, definately not eco-friendly in any way. One further issue with creating a fall to a floor waste is that you'd always have a point of weakness in the structure around you waste point. This is going to (slowly if you used either of the above species) rot faster than the surrounding structure.

I'd be abandoning that idea and going with something less labour intensive and easier to maintain. There are some very nice (and eco-friendly) linoleum products or you can use tiles like 95% of folks do.

I have had a bathroom with a polyurethane finished hardwood timber (tongue and groove) floor. I couldn't recommend it, especially if you have kids. The changes in moisture content result in expansion and contraction along the joints and it's very difficult to keep clean. In addition the finish has to be redone every few years and is nasty stuff.

Family members have also tried cork flooring in a bathroom. This looks stunning but again, despite what salesmen may say, is not really suited to a bathroom.

My favourite finish for a wet area is Terrazzo this is particularly awesome if you are on a slab. If you look after it according to the directions it is really a once in three lifetimes flooring. We had this in our previous home and it was one of several things I was sad to have to leave.

[artme]

Shower over tub!:doh::doh:

There are some pretty good timber pattern ceramic tiles about these days. Have a look for some.