Isn't the web an amazing place for inspiration? One of the blogs I follow is
Lovely Crafty Home. Rachael shares tons of great ideas on how she makes her home truly beautiful. It was her
Ultimate Brown Paper Bag Flooring Guide that inspired me to create this
awesome floor in my woman cave.
Now at the bottom of Lovely Crafty Home's flooring guide, Rachael tells us that her technique won't work on concrete floors. However, she says others have had success using polyurethane only, no elmer's glue. The downside is you won't be able to dye your papered floor. I wonder....RIT dye worked for me the last time. Would it work in a polyurethane only method? Read on (hint.....it does).
I'm doing my bathroom remodel (down stairs half bath) and the floor is HIDEOUS! Take a look!
So the first thing I have to do is remove the old tile. I always hate this step but at least the flooring is old enough that the tile comes up fairly easily.
Here's what's below the tile. Old pine flooring. U.G.L.Y.! We definitely need to be getting this covered up again.
You need to make sure that all your boards are securely fastened down. If you have boards that move you run the risk of them cracking your new flooring if you skip this step so don't!
Next, you need to brush on a barrier product to make sure that any gaps in your floor while also providing a water barrier (since this is in the bathroom). We used Redgard. You can find it
here.
Once your floor is sealed (and dry) it's time to apply some floor leveler. I have found that even though houses are built with flat floors, as houses settle they may not be flat anymore. We used a concrete leveler that is inexpensive and fairly easy to work with. You can get it
here.
So, we've now gone from an UGLY tile floor to an UGLY pine floor to an "eh" concrete floor. Time to make it beautiful. This time I used powdered black RIT dye. I added the entire contents of the dye box and added 1/2 cup HOT water: mix THOROUGHLY! (note: I would recommend you use the liquid dye as I did in my previous floor).
Wearing disposable gloves, pour some polyurethane into a disposable tray (I used a small paint roller tray) and add some RIT dye. I used a ratio of about 1 cup of polyurethane to 2 Tbsp of dye. Mix.
Now add your crumpled paper (see notes at the end of the post) to the polyurethane mixture and allow the paper to become soaked with polyurethane. It won't take too long. The paper will feel different when totally wet, a bit more flexible.
Starting in one corner, begin covering your floor with your paper pieces. Make sure they are flat with no bent sides and no air bubbles underneath. You really need this layer to adhere to your floor.
Continue working until your entire floor is covered. Here are two pictures of the floor after the first layer of paper.
Let your floor dry overnight (12 hours or more). You will need to sand between coats. I put down about 10 coats of polyurethane since this was going to be in my bathroom...a very high traffic area. I added black RIT dye the polyurethane for every coat I added. I wanted a uniform black finish. However, whenever your floor is the color you like, continue with just straight polyurethane.
Here's my finished floor (my sweetie added black cove base). Doesn't it look awesome? I LOVE it.
Now, you can't really see the texture of the floor so here is an up close picture with flash. The floor has a nice leathery look.
Let's see how far we've come. Here's the before and after. What a difference! It took a long time but it was so worth it.
Notes:
- Note, these steps are for adding a cement leveler in a bathroom. If you already have a cement floor, you may be able to skip some of my preliminary steps.
- Use a water based polyurethane if you are mixing RIT dye (oil based will NOT work)
- When adding RIT dye to your polyurethane, do not add too much. If you do, your polyurethane will thicken up and achieve an almost gel like texture.
- I would tear/crumple up my grocery bags the night before while watching TV. Place pieces with straight edges in one bag (these make great edge pieces) and place the other pieces in a second bag.
- You can use the printed side of your paper grocery bags. However, when you dye your polyurethane, you will find that it is difficult to determine which side of the paper has the printing since the dye will have really soaked into your paper. Do NOT use the parts of the bag where it is two layers thick (glued together).
