After spending 15 hours pulling out carpet and padding, tack strips and padding staples, we discovered some incredible sub-flooring. We could not afford wood or laminate and I hate carpets, so we decided to paint the plywood.

After cleaning and sanding, I masked off a border.

Primed and painted the border with a latex flat paint

Masked off 4 inch strips for the wood planks and hand painted with flat black

Did the same process for the dividing lines, staggering them every 4th plank

I used gold enamel for the nail heads and painted a watered down shadow around each painted on nail head

I them stenciled a pattern and did a skinny border. After it dried a used a gold glaze on top of the stenciled area.

Once everything was dry, I masked on a the main design and then painted the entire border using a gloss black latex. Once the paint was dry, I pulled off the masking tape.

After the black paint had dried over night, I used a water based poly urethane to coat the entire surface. This was a gruely project unless you are used to doing 15 hours of squats at a gym everyday. At 53 years old - this actually just about killed me. We like to tell everybody, "Look what we found when we pulled up the old carpet"!
To see our read the entire "make-over" experience, you can follow the progress at www.thewoodssecretgarden.blogspot.com

Floor has dried and and bookcases and desk in place.