How to Paint Tile Floors with a Stencil

Learn how to paint tile floors with a stencil with my step by step DIY tutorial. Get the look of farmhouse cement tile on a budget!

I’ve just finished renovating my work studio, and you can take the full tour of the space right here. In the corner of my studio was this wood stove area featuring some outdated, pinky beige tile:

Because my studio is a fun place for me to experiment with DIY ideas and because this tile gets low traffic (if any), I thought it would be the perfect candidate for a tile painting makeover!

Here’s how this corner looks now:

Nope, I didn’t rip out the old tile and install some new ones – I painted & sealed the original tile with chalk style paint, a stencil, and some Varathane sealant! Read on to learn how I painted this floor tile and how you can too.

(I was inspired by both Remington Avenue and Blooming DIYer to paint & stencil my floor tiles!)

First, I sanded the original tile with an orbital sander to make it rough so it would accept paint better. Then, I cleaned it thoroughly with a de-greaser.

Next, I taped off the trim and baseboards around my tile area with painter’s tape.

Then, I put some Chalked Paint in Charcoal in a paint tray and used a small paint brush to paint over the grout lines and into the edges of my tiled area. I decided to use chalk style paint because I like how it sticks well to surfaces, but if you use a regular latex paint you should prime your tiles with an oil based primer before painting.

Next, I took a high density foam roller and painted all of the tiles with the Charcoal Chalked paint. I ended up painting them with two coats of paint.

Now comes the fun (but time consuming) part! Cutting Edge Stencils sent me this beautiful Santa Ana Tile Stencil to try for free, and I thought it would be the perfect pattern for this area. Once my base coat was really dry (I waited a day), I taped the stencil down onto the tile with painter’s tape. Using a foam roller with a very small amount of Linen White Chalked paint on it, I painted carefully over the stencil.

I started in the corner of my tiled area, and stenciled every other tile, let those dry, and then completed the rest of the tiles.

Some of the tiles were really hard to stencil – like the corner tiles and the ones around the feet of the wood stove – so I took a small craft paint brush and touched up any areas that needed it with some more white paint.

Once the tiles had dried thoroughly, I sealed everything with Varathane polyurethane in a satin finish. I’d recommend doing at least two coats, maybe three, of sealant to protect your beautiful paint job.

And that’s it! My tiles look like they’re brand new and they boast such a fun, bold pattern!

I found this project pretty straight forward, but it was definitely time consuming. I’m not sure I’d do it on a very high traffic area, but I have seen other bloggers do it in kitchens and bathrooms with apparent success!

You can watch my video tutorial below to learn how to paint floor tile with stencils:

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