Cheap & Easy D.I.Y. Floors

We are re-doing our floors!

Our house is a two bedroom two bath and in those two bedrooms is some very old long expired dirty yuky carpet. In the Bathrooms and kitchen there's this (never looks clean) linoleum.

We have intended on changing the carpet since we bought the house but it's taken us four years to be able to afford it and even now it is very patience trying waiting for the payday to supply the next tool or product for the job so that we can move forward. So while waiting for the funds for the next step I thought I'd share a bit of what we are doing.

Initially we had intended to do wood floors in the bed rooms. Though as we have lived here we have come to despise the linoleum found in most of the rest of the house. Since wood floors can get expensive and tricky for diy newbs like us. I started looking around at other options. Coming across concrete staining. I thought that would look great in this house. Although upon further investigation it looked as though it would turn out to be a little to expensive for us still. And because of all of the cracks and chips and such in the concrete that we discovered that it might not give us the results that we wanted. So back to the drawing board it was. Thank the stars for Pintrest!

I'm sure many of you have seen the "paper bag floor" diy posted and pinned all over the web. Well guess what here comes another.

 Why?

 Because it's awesome and we can't get enough!

We started in the smallest room of the house to be sure we liked the process we chose and to get an Idea of the cost before moving forward. As well as to practice our technique before moving on to the bigger projects. Okay so here is what we did!

1st we had to rip up the horrible linoleum. YAY!

 And then of coarse get the concrete beneath as clean as possible.

Fill in chips and cracks in the concrete that may have occurred over the years. With a concrete filler found at the hardware store.

 

And allow that to dry for the time suggested on the products instructions.

In the mean time. We started prepping the supplies needed for our new floors.

At the same hardware store we found this gallon of Elmer's Glue for I think between $14-$15.

We split that up in two halves between two empty gallon cartons previously used for water.

We filled each one half way. Emptying the Elmer's jug.

We then filled the remainder of the empty space in the carton with water leaving just a bit of space at the top so that there would be room for the two to move around and mix together. Then we shook them up. (while holding the lid so as not to wind up pouring glue water everywhere). It's a lot like the D.I.Y. mod podge post I did a while back for the D.I.Y. skull tables I also posted about for Halloween. Only this mixture is on a larger scale.

After that I improvised a disposable bucket using another gallon carton and cutting it like this.

So that's all ready now it's time to tend to the paper.

Again, Found at the same hardware store we picked up some builders paper.   

We had to rip it up.

                                 So when the time finally came to apply the paper to the floor

  we poured the glue mixture into to improvised bucket.

One by one we crumpled up the paper pieces and dipped them into the glue. Then unraveled them and laid them flat to the floor pressing and smoothing them to the concrete. After every third or fourth piece we smoothed out the glue with a cheap synthetic paint brush.

By the time we covered the entire floor it looked something like this.

But don't worry the glue dries clear.

After the glue was completely dry we  went over the floor with a satin finish clear epoxy sealer. That we found for around $30

We used this particular brand because it was the cheapest thing that we could find that we thought met our needs and preferences. In order to get the clear version we had to order it online and wait. As I have indicated before money is of concern for us and so you might choose a different brand if you can afford it. Although so far I see absolutely nothing wrong with this product. Should that change I will list it in my updates as I continue through my house with this project.

I applied seven coats of this. Following the directions for the epoxy I waited 2 hours between coats and it took a few days after the last coat to be really solid (we had cold weather outside so it took a bit long to cure)

After all was done this is the bathroom floor I am left with.

 Close up of the texture.

 

You can apply a stain (wood stain) between gluing the paper to the floor and sealing it if you want a different color. But again we are trying to save as much as possible on this project and we both liked the look of the raw color of the paper. So we left it as is.

I will likely revisit this subject in future posts as I finish the rest of my house but I was so excited with my new bathroom floor that I just couldn't wait to share.

 

If I wasn't planning on selling this house I might have done things more artistically.... Maybe my next home.

If you try this for yourself please leave me a photo or a link to your own blog post about it in the comments. Also we still have two bedrooms a bathroom and a kitchen to finish so if you have any helpful tips please comment and share them with me. The hubby and I will appreciate all of the help we can get to getting this done faster, cheaper and as beautifully as possible.

 Thank you!