Penny Floor

Here's a riddle for you: a boyfriend and a girlfriend take on 59,670 pennies. Who wins? Well, 130 hours later (none spent in couples counseling, mind you), and we're proud to say: it was us. The idea spawned from seeing other iterations of it on design blogs. However, most of these spaces were tiny, like bathrooms or entryways. Figuring we could do it better, faster, stronger, we laid our first square foot of pennies in the corner of our 234 square foot bedroom. There was no turning back. We innovated the penny process several times, spotting room for improvement as we went along. We started with small tubes of glue and laid tiny dots of it in a line, similar to the way you would decorate a cake with icing. Then, we'd place each penny (heads up except for wheat pennies) and push it into place. Maddening, for sure. Our big breakthrough came from a caulk gun and stronger glue. With that, we'd push out copious amounts of glue, spread it into a square section with a spatula, and lay pennies within the glue pool. A huge time saver, albeit a clothing-ruiner and thumb-stainer. From square sections, we moved to straight lines. This way, we could ensure the pennies would line up with no overlaps when our two sections would finally join. And when they did? Grout time – just like with regular tile. We finalized the project by placing one rare silver penny into the mix of copper. Then, we drowned the floor in a clear coat, and cemented the little Lincolns into their final resting place. Now, we've got a smooth, shiny floor that's fun to walk on and easy on the eyes – not to mention, we're walking on money, people. How cool is that? The project even landed us on the Today Show!!!