Yes, I PAPERED My Floor!

I know, I know.  This is a blog about my cooking.  BUT I had to share this with you.  It was a fun project and it turned out pretty dang awesome, should my opinion count for anything.

My basement is getting converted into an office so Miss Aisey will (one day soon, PLEASE) have her own bedroom.  Needless to say, I wanted my office to have something other than just boring old cement. 

The one part of the room is very high traffic and I knew that carpeting would be ruined in days, floating floor clawed to pieces in hours by the doggies and painting the cement just seemed B-O-R-I-N-G!

Then, one Sunday, a blog update landed in my Inbox.  Someone had decided to "paper" their basement steps.  It looked neat.  Better, it was CHEAP!

So, I decided to go for it.

Yah, my 28 x 32 foot room - just a little bit larger than the woman's staircase!  I'm still waiting to learn my lesson on "biting off more than I can chew!"

But I digress.  The papering of the floor is a simple process.  It also goes quickly.  I did split my project into two weekends - a newborn is kinda needy, so I didn't get as much accomplished the first weekend. 

I recommend lots of ventilation! Oh, and if you plan to do this, get used to people telling you that you are insane or that the project isn't going to work.  I cannot begin to tell you how many people told me I needed help, the project was a dumb idea, or that I was wasting my time and money.  When we started, I was afraid, but it is beautiful.  AND there are so many combos . . . I'm thinking of trying other paper for in my sewing room!

Paper Bag Flooring
Ingredients:
1 roll contractor paper
1 gigundo jug of Elmer's Glue
2 gigundo cans of Polyurethane
1 old ice cream bucket
Old Clothing

(I purchased the paper, glue and polyurethane at Lowe's.  Home Depot's site said they had it all in stock, but they didn't.  I asked the woman in the paint section for the Elmer's Glue in a large size as they only had a small bottle like we'd use at school - she said Elmer's had quit making that size years ago.  Once again, WHY did I bother with HD?  I have NO LUCK with that store and always leave there so frustrated.)

The Hubby pretending to work on the floor.

Clean the floor, removing any dry wall paste, etc.  Mop it again for good measure.

Riiiiip!

We cheated here - we didn't use paper bags from the supermarket.  We would've needed WAY too many for such a large room.  Instead, we just purchased a roll of contractors paper when we picked up the glue and poly.  (Note - we actually needed two rolls.  Instead, I ran out and had to use paper bags and packing paper.  I recommend the contractor's paper.  It is heavier and makes it so much easier to work with when wet).

Rip up the paper.  I liked going with all sorts of shapes and sizes.  If you want, you can make your rips uniform.  It just won't be as rewarding to "fit" them together, covering the floor.  Place the paper with the factory straight edges in one pile and all of the rest of the paper in another.

Crumble the paper into balls. 

Make a mix of 3 cups water to 1 cup glue.  Stir well.  Drop a few paper balls in the water.  Pull out a ball and squeegee the water off.  Lay it on the floor and press all of the air bubbles out.  Continue with next ball until floor is covered.  Use the factory edge pieces of paper for along the walls/stairs.  Be certain to overlap pieces of paper to ensure coverage of cement.

Miss Picky loved putting a lot of gluey water down, and then complaining about it being gross.

One half of the first half of the room . . . yah!

Watching the floor dry.

A close up of the floor as it dried.

You can see how the left half is dry and the right half is still wet.

Let the glued down paper dry.  For us, it was around 12 hours - we have radiant heat.  I suggest having a dehumidifier close by the room as well as our room was very humid by the time we were done from the amount of water/glue we used!

After the paper is dry, roll on a coat of polyurethane. 

Let it dry (it was around 3 hours for us).  Apply 6 more coats of polyurethane, letting the floor dry between coats.

Floor can be walked on in 24 hours from last coat of polyurethane and furniture can be moved in after 7 days.

This is the side that we had to use other brown papers as well. 

Miss Aisey enjoying the new floor while we did some more work on the room.

 Some thoughts after having done this:
- if part of the floor gets damaged, just get a new piece of paper, slap on some gluey water, put over damaged section and then polyurethane it!

- packing paper is HORRIBLE.  It is way too thin and dissolves in the water.  It is not pleasant to use in this project.

- You CAN break out from too much gluey water on your arms!

- Polyurethane does NOT wash off of your clothing.

- You will realize there are many muscles in your body that you do not usually use!

Linking up at:

tatertots & jello