Many of the paint and dye effects used on purpose-built joinery, items of furniture and wooden frames can be used successfully on floorboards. The main consideration remains - that floors are there to be walked on -and therefore any scheme must be permanently sealed in order for it to be considered practical and hard-wearing.

Visual effects can work well on both scrubbed and machine-sanded floors. The rule of thumb is that the darker coloured schemes will tend to suit the scrubbed, darker boards, while the pale-coloured finishes are best on newly revealed surfaces on sanded floors. Unless the reason for machine sanding was a very uneven surface, time and energy are wasted if the intention is to apply an overall dark finish.

Suitable finishes

Wood stains and varnishes will alter the color of the wood surface, grain, or both, and decorate and protect the timber. What they will not do is alter the basic visual characteristics of the wood and its grain. A pine floor is still a pine floor, no matter what stain is on it. Just as the Victorians failed to disguise cheap pine doors by applying a dark varnish resembling mahogany or dark oak, you will be unable to give the impression of expensive boards by brushing a can of rosewood stain onto a softwood floor. A basic rule of wood finishing is that cheap timber with an applied stain of oak does not look like oak: it looks like cheap timber with an oak stain on it. You will achieve a satisfactory result only if you apply a finish that complements the wood's natural colors and character. If you seek to obliterate it, you can simply paint it.

Water- and oil-based stains

Water-based stains are perhaps more suited to machine-sanded floors, their versatility emphasized by a lighter wood surface. They can be bought in convenient-sized cans, and are available in bright colors as well as natural wood shades. In a concentrated form they are not very subtle, but the addition of water makes for pleasing tints. They do not penetrate the timber as deeply, and, when used diluted, can be wiped or sanded off the surface leaving only the grain coloured.

Oil-based stains are strong, penetrating deeper into the wood fibers. A dark stain applied to a surface needs much sanding to restore the surface to its natural state and leave the grain coloured. Coloured varnishes are available, combining color and sealer in one coat. However, one coat of sealer is not enough, so these types of varnish are best used to produce a decorative effect, with a clear varnish applied on the top as a hard-wearing finish.

As with any wood, the natural color will alter the stain slightly and an experiment on scrap wood is always a good idea. Blues and greens diluted and washed onto scrubbed boards work well on the fairly grey surface. Different strengths of the same basic color, achieved by dilution ratios or repeat coats, can set up a floor of striped boards. Squares and chequered patterns can be achieved by simple measuring and masking with tape. Test the wood first, however. If it is very absorbent brush the stain up to, but not over, the tape or it will bleed underneath.

Any color you apply will require a protective varnish. Polyurethane will yellow slightly, so make sure your blues don't end up as greens by testing them first. Reds, though, improve when varnished because subtle shades of orange appear, so make sure you include the final seal in your color calculation. This is particularly important if you use a coloured varnish decoratively before the finishing clear varnish, where, for example, a yellow pine finish is used over a diluted red. Red color is strong in the wood grain, but the surface is influenced by the pine and appears as a patchy yellow-orange. The yellow content will increase slightly with time since finishing coats of varnish react to the sun's rays in a well-lit room.

Paint and varnish combinations

Oil-based gloss paints are tough enough for floor finishes in some lesser used areas: in bedrooms, for example, where scattered rugs are the featured covering. Heavy traffic areas are different. Constant wear and tear, particularly from external entry points, will quickly damage the floor surface. These areas - hallways, corridors, and even 'through routes' in living rooms - need a very heavy-duty finish.

Special floor paints are on the market, but outlets are limited, as is the range of colors. However, if you are lucky and the color scheme is suitable, they are a good solution. Otherwise, choose your color from any paint source, and apply a flooring-quality clear varnish on top, building up a protective layer that needs to be at least two and possibly four coats thick, depending on the anticipated usage. Any design or color combination can be used because you are treating the paint finish in the same way as a coloured stain.

Remember, however, that the varnish will tend to add a yellowish cast to the colors, which may produce an effect that you had not intended or wanted. Re-create your intended scheme on scrap pine board and apply the required number of varnish coats. You may find that changing the base colors slightly will produce the effect you want. Many interesting marriages of stain and paint are thus open to you. Try painting the board with emulsion, and removing part of the surface when it is dry, revealing the wood grain underneath. A sander can be used for this, but a more casual effect is achieved by hand, and you can use wet-and-dry silicon carbide paper (used wet) instead of glass paper. Try experimenting with wax resists. This is an old technique relying on the principle that oil (the wax) and water (the emulsion paint) won't mix. Start by washing a diluted pale blue stain along the board, and leaving it to dry.
 
•Use steel wool to rub a clear wax, available from art suppliers and DIY stores, randomly along parts of the board, creating an abstract pattern.

•Before the wax is dry, over paint the entire board with a mid-blue water-based emulsion, and this time allow it to dry out completely.

•Rub down the areas of the board that you waxed with coarse steel wool; they should appear slightly darker than the rest. The top paint will come off with the wax, leaving patches of pale blue stain showing through.

•The top paint can be blended in more subtly if it is still wet when you rub it - the patches are less obvious since the paint tends to spread along the board.

•As with all combinations, the colors chosen give very different  effects. Two-tone blues and greens are not as vivid as a mix of pine yellow and a dark red or brown, so test the scheme on scrap wood before you start.

Different wood colors

A rustic appearance can add to the appeal of bare timber floors in smaller rooms, when the glazed look of expensive flooring found in town houses seems inappropriate.
Scrubbed floorboards can be further lightened by bleaching them. This technique should be used sparingly, however, perhaps one board in four across the floor area. Adding a pale grey wash and a pine stain at random to other boards, leaving the rest with a scrubbed finish, gives a pleasing range of tones.
Proprietary wood bleaches are available from good ironmongers, and are usually applied in two parts with a special brush available from the same source. When the bleach has dried out, the wood needs to be washed, first with a recommended neutralizer and then sparingly with warm water. A pine varnish on some of the other boards needs thinning slightly to sink into the surface. When it dries, sand back the top surface to remove any trace of a sheen. The floor can be left as it is, varnished once to seal it and then sanded by hand gently to remove any surface sheen. Or, to ensure maximum protection, the floor can be varnished in the conventional manner.