I haven't painted them, but we just laid the peel & stick vinyl tiles (the thicker higher quality ones though) directly over our old hideous lino and they look wonderful. For about $50 CDN, it completely transformed the look of our bathroom. (All you have to do is scratch up the existing lino with some steel wool or coarse sandpaper and then wipe the floors down to get rid of the dust - then apply the tiles.) And it probably doesn't take any longer than painting!