Brown Paper Floors: March 2015

This is all you need to make brown paper floors like this! and for less than $80 per room!!

It all started when I realized that the home I've lived in and raised my family in for 26 years was looking impossibly shabby and who would ever want to buy this home when I need to sell it. I was never crafty or creative or imaginative and certainly had never done a single do-it-yourself project in my entire life and would never even think I could. And ohhh how I wanted to replace my 26 year old carpet with wood floors and get all new cabinets. But financial restraints and feelings of overwhelming helplessness in how to fix it all led me to the internet and searching for how to lay tiles and refinish cabinets. I stumbled on a YouTube video posted by An Oregon Cottage about brown paper floors. I almost didn't even watch because it sounded like such a ridiculous idea. Paper floors!?? Ridiculous!! But I hung in there and watched and fell in love with the floors they had made in their home. Beautiful, stunning floors. I researched further and found that lots of people were doing this and posting tutorials and blogs about this fabulous, cheap, and easy to do yourself flooring. All for less then $80.00 a Room! Cheap and Easy were the key words for me! So the next day I was ripping out carpet. I started in my now grown-up and moved out son's room, sort of as a test before moving on to the rest of the house. Here's the 26 year old mauve carpet that I had throughout my house.

Now this part was relatively easy...gloves, box cutter,..and bam...carpet is GONE. Then came the prep work of the subfloor which was the most difficult and non-enjoyable part of the entire project.

The immense amount of dirt underneath the carpet made me feel like I was at the beach.. I swept and filled a bucket full of dirt, and vacuumed. and yes, I did vacuum for all those years, I don't know how all that dirt got under there. Next was removing the tack strips and staples, scraping, spackling and filling cracks and holes, and sanding and making it as smooth as possible.

Then finally vacuuming and wiping down the floor to make sure it's dust free. And then it was time for the fun part...actual papering! I got everything I needed at Lowes....

Contractors Paper

Gallon sized Elmer's Glue

and Polyurethane

Next I tore up the paper in various sizes, it doesn't matter what size or shape, and crumpled each piece into a wad, and smoothed out.

And then I put the pieces with a straight edge in a separate pile from the ones without straight edges. The straight edged pieces are used for wall edges and corners and such. In a bucket, I made a 60/40 mixture of water/glue. Other people say to use a 50/50 mixture, but I found that to be too slimy and I preferred a thinner blend and it worked fine that way for me. I used a large paintbrush to slather the glue mixture on one side of a piece of paper, and starting in the corner, I placed the paper on the floor and slathered more glue mixture on top and smoothed it with my hands so it was flat on the floor. then did the same with each piece, overlapping each piece by at least half an inch because as the paper dries it will shrink some and you don't want any gaps in between. Here's what it looks like during the gluing process.

Process of making a brown paper floor

Once the whole floor is covered, I allowed to dry for at least 12 hours. Then I walked around and patched any missed spots by gluing on a piece of paper to cover and allowing to dry again. Then it was time for the Polyurethane. I used duct tape to tape the same paintbrush I had used for gluing onto an extension pole to be able to brush the polyurethane on from a standing position. The trick is to not apply too thickly, you just need a thin layer. I worked my way from the far end of the room towards the exit brushing in a side to side motion. Then allowed it to dry. You need a minimum of 4 coats allowing ample time to dry in between. I live in California, so it was dry in an hour for me, but it can take up to several hours depending on the humidity where you live. I went above and beyond and applied 8 coats, and here's what it looked like when it was done. Beautiful and shiny. The texture from the crinkled paper and the glue and polyurethane is gorgeous! and oh my gosh...I'm in love with Brown Paper floors!

Beautiful brown paper floor done on wood sub floors

This is how it looked after I finished painting the walls in that bedroom.

After the last coat, the polyurethane has to cure. It can have light use after a day and then after 3 to 4 days you can start moving furniture back in!

Well so since then, I moved on to the rest of the house, one room at a time..

Adding more brown paper floor. It's all about the prep work!

I've completed brown paper floors over wood and concrete sub floors, and even right on top of vinyl flooring, using the exact same 60/40 water/glue mixture in my entire house...the bathrooms, laundry room, kitchen, living room, family room, bedrooms. That's how much I LOVE these floors. It's beautiful and durable. I have two dogs who live indoors who run and jump and play all over the floors, and not to mention me walking all over it with high heels and it doesn't scratch.