Friday, September 13, 2013

Paper floor

Hello and welcome back! in the previous post I left you with my wonderful day spent ripping up carpet. Here is the post of the before
 Today I will show you the progress of my new paper floors they still need a few more layers of polyurethane but so far I love them so much. They are so inexpensive and we have spent  $170 and I have completed the living room and small hallway. Up next will be the bathroom and oldest DD's room.




It has been a hard week. We moved out all the furniture into the garage so that I could work on this project. I have also been working in sections and only work at night because it would be a nightmare to work this hard and have my kiddos step on every area of the floor. For the first few days I would glue the paper strips down go to bed around 3am  that way I wouldn't be a zombie the day after and this would be enough to let the floor dry by the morning. 
After a few days of gluing I began staining and man oh man I thought I was gonna die! that stuff smells horrible and by that stuff I mean I used this. I was only able to do about half of the floor before I needed to stop and then resumed in the next few days. until finally I had the whole living room and hallway done.  I waited a few days for the stain to dry completely and then applied 4 coats of poly. I still need a few more coats but It has been raining here for three days straight. Now I leave you with the finished result and a short video of the gluing process yep I AM I LOVE with my new paper floors!
Here are the items I used for the floor. I used my quilting ruler to cut the paper into the same width cuts I more or less tried to cut a straight line but as you can see from the floor I cant even cut straight lines with a ruler. the stain I applied by hand with a rag dragging it down the length of the planks to give it a wood look. after that dried I applied the floor finish with a roller, there are five coats for my living room and hallway. I will still be applying more coats just to be on the safe side and because my kids are very destructive



I would also like to thank Pat from http://corninmycoffee-pot.blogspot.com/ she was my inspiration for this floor. 


22 comments:

  1. Diana
    Hi! My word you floor turned out spectacular!
    I'm super impressed. You have to tell us, what does your hubby think about it now?
    You have way more ambition than I do!
    Great job.
    Pat

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  2. Thank you Pat! The husband loves it he tells all his friends how awesome his wife is!

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  3. Saw your floor over at Pat's place. Great job! A lot of work, but ohhh so worth it! It's beautiful!
    gail

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  4. The floor looks great. I can't believe it's paper. I've never heard of that before.

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  5. It looks amazing! If I didn't have all new flooring, I'd be doing that!

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  6. Thank you ladies! Joyful you are not the only one everyone that comes over thinks its hardwood. I had heard about it a long time ago but it never occurred to me to do it sooner and thank goodness for Google because that's how I learned how to do it. Also thankful for Pat for answering my questions about the floor.

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  8. I LOVE IT! I've been researching paper floors for about 2 months and had decided that I wanted planks, but the only place I found that someone had done planks was Pat's blog. I got the ok to do our office from my husband, but wanted to try somewhere discreet first. So I decided (on a whim...tonight) to do my master closet instead. It's almost done with the gluing part. I cannot wait to stain (Dark Walnut). So I'm curious, did you cut even length planks from your paper roll or did they vary? I ended up cutting even pieces across the paper rather than length wise because then they were all the same size and I had no waste. Yours looks SO beautiful. Really great job! Did you use satin poly? I think the lower sheen really makes it so realistic!
    Chris {aka Freckle Face Girl}
    http://frecklefaceathome.blogspot.com/

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  9. Saw your floor project via Corn in My Coffee Pot. This is Jaw droppingly awesome!! Both your floors and her.

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  10. Thank you JoAnn and Chris I cut the paper evenly as I could all the same length I wasted no paper either. I Updated the post with a photo of the items I used. and I used gloss poly but I still need a few more coats. Thanks for stopping by.

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  11. Your floor looks great! I have a couple of questions about your process...1) Did you overlap the edges of the paper at all or butt them together? 2) Did you use the paper smooth or wrinkle it length wise? Thanks for sharing, it really looks nice.

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    1. Hi Chris I did overlap the edges a little, only because even with a ruler I cant cut straight. and I used the paper smooth no wrinkling involved.here is another close up of it and you can see how they overlap

      http://diyadventureswithdiana.blogspot.com/2013/10/paper-floor-update.html

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  13. Did you do anything special to prime the concrete flooring? As soon as it warms up a bit in my neck of the woods I plan on doing this in my dining room. Love the look and he price tag.

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  14. Amberly i just scrubbed the floor with soap and water, after it dried i just started gluing. Your definetly going to love the price tag!

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  15. I came across your blog when searching for inexpensive flooring options and I have to say it is wonderful. I've seen the paper bag floor but don't really care for the design with the ripped pieces and wrinkling. I want wood floors but they are out of budget right now. Your floor looks amazing though,so I'm going to try it. My husband just ripped out all the carpet yesterday and I can't wait to get started. Thank you for the inspiration.

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  16. I know you are probably sick to death of answering questions about your floors, which by the way are stunning! but I have to ask did you do something special to get the wood grain look or is that just from wiping it off. I just finished a paper floor in my bathroom, but not in the plank style. I am going to try the planks in the rest of my house. Thanks for the inspiration.

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  17. No worries, glad to answer any questions. The wood grain is jist from rubbing the stain with a cloth I did purposefuly try to get the wood grain trial and error but, i found that if you use various amounts of pressure while wiping the stain you get the grain look.

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  18. My carpets are so nasty but upgrading them isn't in the budget right now. If I do this do you think we'll be able to lay a floating floor right over it in a few years?

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    1. Amy I don't see why you wouldn't be able to lay floating floor over it, it's so thin that it does not make a diffrence. but don't quote me on that. I think if you were going to install tile then yes it would have to be removed.

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  19. When we did this in our house, we made sure to use only water-based products, because oil-based polyurethane smells *vile* and I didn't want us to be trapped in a room with it. So if you want to avoid that stink with the next room you do, you could try looking for a water-based stain.

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