Tiled Penny Floor
By DIY Maven
Yup, that's right. It's a floor that's been tiled with thousands and thousands of pennies. If you're in the NY area, visit The Standard Grill to see it in person. Having done my share of tiling with mosaic, I can't even imagine. I really hope, for the sake of the back of the tilers, each penny was glued onto sheeting before it was laid. Up-close it's a conversation starter for sure, but I'm loving the texture when viewed from a bit father away. And who knew thousands of pennies could look so lux?
Via.
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Self-proclaimed Maven of DIY, I'm up for anything from gonzo rehab to dressing a room. Check...
thebeezkneez
RIBS
I love this floor and found this site after seeing it mentioned on a site about redoing an apartment floor on the cheap. I am going to TRY and use this on my own kitchen/butlers pantry and laundry room redo. And then I can say "I re-did the floors for PENNIES!" Ha ha ha......LOVE IT! Anyone have ANY idea of what was used to glue the pennies down? The grout in between? Whoo whoo.....
DestinybyDefinition
i think i can see a grid on the top one...
Anonymous
The picture looks as though the pennies are laid in some kind of tar. We had an old house in Houston with screeds "glued" down to a concrete slab with hot tar. I wonder if that's how these were attached. It would certainly be cost effective and permanent, but I'm not sure about the cleanliness. Maybe if the floor was covered in some kind of clear sealant after placing the pennies and letting the tar harden??
Mike P
As to the legality of using coins as "art"...
It's a bit of a grey area.
The penny mashers interpretation of the law is, that since the coins are being removed from circulation, then it is legal, as the law only applies to coins in circulation. If you tried to buy candy with your mashed penny, then by this interpretation, it is then illegal, but I suspect most people don't try to put a mashed penny back into cirulation. I guess the question is who has the legal authority to remove coins from circulation?
Another interpretation is defacing coins for fraudulent use. Since there is no intent to defraud anyone with these coinc, it is legal.
Either way, I believe the government just turns a blind eye.
DIY Maven
Mike--about 2 minutes before I read your comment, my hubby asked the exact same question! I guess you could make the argument that that they didn't actually deface it. Worse are those penny flattening machines, when you think about it. You know the ones...the souvenir makers they have at every national park in the U.S.! ;)
Rene Rencontre
Wow it looks great seriously. Now I see what I can make with my collections of coins. :)
MarvinWindows
That looks awesome, but isn't some sort of crime to deface money -- or remove it from circulation -- like this?
--Mike
jamievogel
Hmmm. I'm intrigued. I now want to penny-tile my entire house. Can you imagine how hard it would be to get all the coins spaced correctly??
DIY Maven
The lines in pennies are so fine, grout probably wouldn't stick in them--I can't imagine even sand-less grout would get stuck. Although, because all those grout lines between the pennies are so shallow, I'm not sure regular grout (sanded or otherwise) would stand up. Being that thin, I'd think it would fracture, especially under such usage. Maybe they were set into an epoxy which was pre-applied to the sheets and then the sheets applied with thin set, or whatever. It certainly would be interesting to hear how it was actually done!
Jamie
I love, love, love this! A comment on the orginating site says:
As to the “how” of this project, you can get mesh backing that’s adhesive on one side. Stick all the pennies to that, in 8” or 12” squares, then lay it down in grids like any other tile that’s similar. Grout it & voila! Pretty cool effect, but the anal retentive in me badly wants of them heads-up & facing the same direction!
BUT I don't think it looks grouted in the picture, plus the grout would stick to all the grooves in the pennies. How are they filling in the spaces, do you think? I suppose you could pour resin over the whole thing, but that could get expensive. You'd have to do something, especailly in a resturant, things would get stuck in the empty spaces and it would be dirty all the time.
What do you think?
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