Brown Paper Flooring 101

Upon deciding that I had totally lost my mind and that I needed to remodel my youngest 2 girls room while they were away, I looked at my flooring options. I didn't have a ton of money to spend and really wanted something unique. What I found was Brown Paper Flooring and my adventure began!

Yes you heard me right, PAPER! I did some research on this and concluded this was what we needed. It was very cheap, (I have about $65 in about 130 square feet of flooring), very pretty and holds up really well.

To start this process you need to buy:

• Rolls of brown craft paper. Usually found in the tape and packing area of Walmart, they run about $5 for a 75 sq ft roll. Figure up the square footage of the area you are doing and add just a little extra to account for overlap and such. My area was 130 sq ft and I used 2 rolls of paper.
• A gallon of Elmer's Glue All, sold at most hardware stores for around $15
• 1 gallon of fast drying, high traffic polyurethane coating in whatever finish you like. I used a high gloss from Walmart, ran about $30.
• KNEE PADS....seriously, this is a MUST! You spend most of your time on your butt with this project but you will need knee pads when you are trying to lay around the wall edges!

I did this over concrete that had 50 year old tiles on top. I removed the tiles and washed the floor several times just to get it ready for the glue to stick once I started. My floor was nice and even, no holes that needed filling. If you need to fill in any spots on your floor now is the time to do so, otherwise you could end up with bubbles in your flooring.

Here is what mine looked like just before I started

Now the night before I started I sat and tore both the rolls of paper into pieces about a foot long, then tore them in half again. I then crumbled them up and placed them into a big laundry basket. This made it much easier to continue working and not have to stop and tear paper.

The next step is to take just a few pieces, like 2 or 3 at a time and soak them in your glue. Now I mixed my glue with water at a ratio of 2 glue to 1 water. This means 2 cups of glue, 1 cup of water. I used an old mop bucket we had to do this in.

You do not want to soak more than about 3 pieces at a time because they will get really soggy and be almost impossible to use. Also you just need to soak them for a small time, just enough to get them wet with the glue. When you are ready to lay a new piece down, gently squeeze the wad of paper to get rid of any excess glue and then gently pull the paper back into the larger size.

Starting in the farthest corner from your door out of the room, smooth the pieces of paper out onto your prepared floor. Try and line the straight edge up with your walls, it just makes it easier for you. You need to gently smooth the paper, it will tear if you are not gentle enough. I tried using gloves but found it was very hard to feel if all the air bubbles were out form underneath so I just got in there and got my hand dirty! I also found that getting a little extra of the glue on my hands aided in the smoothing out process. It gave the paper some added glue that maybe had dried some while working it into place. Use your fingers to add glue to any corners that don't seem to want to stay put too.

Continue along, overlapping pieces as you go! Here is about 1/2 way through my project.

Keep in mind as you go that the more random your pieces look, the better! After you get the entire floor covered you need to let it dry completely. You will know it is totally dry when the entire area is the color the paper was originally. Also, if you happen to tear a part while you are doing this, don't sweat it! Just take a pieces big enough to cover the tear, or the gap if you have some in the patchwork, soak it in the glue mix and smooth it over the tear/gap.

Here is what my floor looked like as it dried

The next step after your floor is totally dry is to stain it! Now you don't HAVE to stain it and I liked the coloring of the plain brown paper but decided to stain it after all! Choose your stain color and get after it! I used a small foam roller and tray to stain my floor, being careful not to leave tons of extra stain on the floor. (On a side note, be sure you ventilate the room WELL when doing this step. If you can, leave for the night because stain is seriously stout smelling stuff that lingers!) This step needs to sit at least 10 hours, longer is better just so the stain has a chance to dry. I stained in the morning around 8 am and it was about 12 hours before I went back to start the next step.

Keep in mind the floor will not be totally dry from the stain, it will be where you can walk on it but the stain will not completely dry no matter how long you wait but give it 10 to 12 hours.

Once your stain has been applied and set for about 12 hours, you are ready to start applying what you will surely think is the easiest part of this flooring process, the polyurethane!!

Here is the floor after the stain has dried:

I love how it looks like tanned leather!



Again, I used a small foam roller and tray set, actually the same tray from the stain, and applied a layer of this to the floor:

I had planned to do 1 coat in the morning after breakfast and then apply a 2nd coat late in the evening, giving 10 or so hours in between coats. However, this stuff dries so fast that in 6 hours time I could walk on it and apply another layer, so I was able to get 3 coats in a day so it really sped things up alot!

MAKE SURE you stir the polyurethane really good EVERY TIME you use it or else you will end up near the bottom of the can and have  a layer that looks like a matte finish instead of glossy. This happened to me but it was easily fixable. I purchased a quart of the same brand poly in a gloss finish and applied 1 more layer, problem solved.

In total I put 8 layers of polyurethane on my flooring. Overkill? Perhaps but it is beautiful and sturdy as can be! We have moved beds across it and it is holding up just fine! If you do for some reason ever get a tear, just get some paper and repair the spot just like you did when you where laying the floor. Follow the steps and it will never be seen!

Here is my finished floor! Ain't she a beaut??