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DIY Renovation Uses 13,000 Pennies to Create Stunning Patterned Floor

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

To many people, a penny isn't worth the time that it takes to pick it up—but not for DIY enthusiast Tonya Tooners. After gathering and sorting a staggering 13,000 pennies ($130), she arranged them into a stunning design on a floor in her home. From afar, you wouldn’t realize they were coins—Tooners’ attention to detail and patterning give the penny floor the appearance of tile.

The DIY decor project was a tedious undertaking. “I started by measuring the area [of the room] and finding the center,” Tooners described on Imgur. Afterwards, she drew an axis as a guide and started gluing the coins in a diamond shape—purposely using different-colored pennies (alternating between heads and tails) to provide a striking visual contrast. Once Tooners got to the edge, she created a border—an addition that gives it a distinctly vintage feel. Aside from the pennies, Tooners used 10 bottles of Elmer’s glue, grout, wood filler, and “expensive epoxy” to make her dream a reality.

Laying down all of the pennies was, by far, the hardest part. After the long process was over, Tooners used grout and epoxy to finalize all her work. All told, she revealed to Reddit that the project took her a few months; but with these results, the time spent was worth it.

Here's how the DIY decor project started…

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

After gluing all of the pennies, Tooners applied grout and epoxy to seal the coins, creating a perfect penny floor.
penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

penny floor DIY decor tonya tooners design

Tonya Tooners: Reddit
via [Imgur]

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met and Manager of My Modern Met Store. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art where she earned her BFA in Illustration and MFA in Illustration Practice. Sara is also an embroidery illustrator and writer living in Seattle, Washington. She runs Bear&Bean, a studio where she stitches pet portraits and other beloved creatures. She chronicles the creativity of others through her website Brown Paper Bag and newsletter, Orts. Her latest book is Threads of Treasure: How to Make, Mend, and Find Meaning Through Thread, published in 2014. Sara’s work has been recognized in Be Creative With Workbox, Embroidery Magazine, American Illustration, on Iron and Wine’s album Beast Epic, among others. When she’s not stitching or writing, Sara enjoys planning things that bring together the craft community. She is the co-founder of Camp Craftaway, a day camp for crafty adults with hands-on workshops in the Seattle area.
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