Step-by-step: Turn three sacks of coins into a gorgeous floor
It's always nice to stumble upon a unique idea for adding a bit of style to your home decor. But one woman's very unusual flooring idea definitely leaves all the others in the dust. No one knows who this creative mystery woman is, but judging by the coins she used, she lives in the U.S. Online she goes by the name "TonyaTooners" and thankfully for us, she posted pictures for the whole world to see.
Here's how it all began...
Tonya was tired of looking at her old laminate floor and decided to rip it out. Then she went to her bank and got $150 worth of pennies which she carried home in three canvas sacks. The first thing she had to do was separate the dark pennies from the light ones. Once that was finished, it was time to get to work!
She started by creating a checkerboard pattern in the middle of the room, gluing the coins down with normal craft glue.
Taken from a different perspective, you can see that they are actually more like diamonds that alternate between dark and light.
For the room's margins, she switched to a zig zag pattern. As you can see, she got quite a bit done on the first day!
The next day the work continued. The hammer was used to drive in a couple of stray nails. This had the added bonus of letting her see which pennies weren't sticking properly. Then it was time for a lot more glue, coins, and a ton of patience.
Tonya made it all look so easy, but she did admit that the corners were very tricky and took ages.
Once she figured out the first corner, the others were easier though.
At one point Tonya noticed that she didn't have enough dark coins so she used a cool trick.
She bought some liver of sulphur gel on the internet and used it to give some of the pennies a darker, bluish patina.
Coin by coin, her masterpiece took shape.
For the threshold between the coin floor and the wood floor Tonya used carpenter's wood filler.
This filled in the gap nicely, was easy to work with, and wasn't too expensive.
While laying her new floor Tonya noticed that its appearance constantly changed depending on how the light fell on it.
Various patterns of shine and shadow brought the room to life. This was exactly the effect that Tonya had hoped for.
The final step was to seal the whole floor with epoxy clear coat. She found this at her local hardware store.
Here's what the floor looked like after applying one coat. Tonya wasn't sure if one coat would be enough, but in the end it was.
If you take a closer look, you'll notice that Tonya was very specific about the positioning of each coin and made sure that Abraham Lincoln was always facing to the right. Now that's attention to detail!
Finally finished! It was enough work to give her a stiff back and knees, but when you see the results it's clear that it was all worth it.
In times when pocket change is becoming less and less useful, this idea really makes a lot of sense. So if you're the kind of person who has a big jar of loose change at home, maybe you can look at it in a whole new way. You might not ever get around to spending it, but maybe you'll save up enough to create your own amazing floor!