Pennies From Mother!

No one was happier than my Mom about my decision to tile a piece of floor with pennies! 

Finally she had a way to get rid of thousands of pennies she had collected over the years and I was happy to take them off her hands.

I got the idea from the Standard Hotel restaurant in New York City. Their floor has perfectly placed one-cent coins grouted with black grout. For a busy restaurant where thousands of feet will walk, black makes sense.  I chose a lighter tone for my grout, more of a camel colour. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

There’s a triangle-shaped piece of floor in our guest bedroom that has been covered in stick-on tiles.  The rest of the room is hardwood so I don’t quite know how this part came to be but it doesn’t really matter.  It’s where my office chair and desk are and it’s been crying out for some attention. Because it’s a little more than six square feet of space, I thought it was perfect for the penny-floor idea.  It will be durable and an unexpected surprise for visitors to that room.

First, I had to sort through the pennies.  I removed the American ones and any that had too much tarnish or stains on them.  They’ll go to Habitat for Humanity’s penny drive. I threw the others in an empty frozen yogurt container and bought the stuff I needed with an eye to speed and low fuss.  I got premixed patching for the subfloor, premixed adhesive and even premixed grout. I patched the floor on Saturday and let it dry overnight.  Yesterday I spent about 4 straight hours troweling on adhesive and then placing the pennies.  They’re totally random; shiny, dull, face up, face down, without a thought to year of issue. (I had already removed the really old ones.) I didn’t space them like they did in New York.  They touch with very little open space. I’d rather see copper than grout.

One plan fell through pretty quickly.  I went to a retailer who specializes in stained glass and mosaic to order some fiberglass mesh. It rolls out like wrapping paper and is adhesive on one side. You cut a square foot, place your pennies on it and when the area is full you turn it over on the adhesive and press down.  Cut, place and repeat. However the shop owner told me I could save a bunch of money by just using Mac-Tac. Great idea, I thought. But it didn’t work.  Even though I used an area about half the size of a square foot the Mac-Tac was too flimsy to hold the pennies.  So one at a time was my only option.

This is how it looked at the end of the day.  My lower back and neck are killing me! I may have to rethink the wisdom of doing these little jobs in the future.  But for now, I’m committed and perhaps I should be.

It’s worth noting that this is not at all a “waste of money”.  A true copper or even copper-look floor would cost a lot more than the $3 per square foot in pennies used here.  And it’s a way of preserving something they truly don’t make anymore.