Paper Bag Floors

Disclaimer:  Do not try this at home if you do NOT like…. Sweeping, scraping, kneeling, glue in your hair, crawling around for days on the floor, more sweeping, glue under your fingernails, sore knees, bruising (don't ask me how), stain under your nails, glue on your feet, or anything to do with glue at all.

Materials Used:
(to be added upon completion)
Bedroom is 10' x 13'

Why Did I Get Myself Into This?

My guest bedroom #2 was once the domain of a teenage boy (who has since moved out) and the carpet is atrocious.  No, it's beyond atrocious, it's... well, it's.....  it's stained, horrible, gross, nasty, old...  well you get the picture.   And since Son #1 is coming home on leave for a week in July, I really wanted to get the room fixed up for him and any guests.    Soooo, that meant the carpet had to go, but I wasn't in a position to replace all the flooring upstairs.   A friend sent me a link to paper bag floors, and it seemed like a great idea at the time.  After reading many blogs and watching all the videos, I gave it a shot.  The floor will be mostly covered by the bed, so if this fails horribly, I will buy a large rug to cover it.

What I Did

My best advice is experiment first!!!!      Here are two attempts that failed.  I also did test strips on the floor where I knew the bed would hide them.

Too rustic

Too wrong!

First:

Rip up carpet, tack strips, etc.  Clean the floor.  Scrape, hammer down nail heads (if doing this on the builder sub floor), sweep, damp mop, sweep some more.  Clean the floor, clean the floor, and then clean the floor.

Second:

Cut your strips.  I cut strips since I wanted a plank look.  I did not crinkle the paper.  I plan to stain it and use a wood graining tool I purchased at Lowes.   Cut enough to do your entire room.  I kept having to stop the gluing because I ran out of strips.  It might have been a MUCH better experience had I cut the strips in advance.  I didn't… so it was torture to have to clean up and go back to cutting!

Third:

Lay out some guidelines on the floor.  Make plum lines!   Finding you're off ½” or more at the end wall is frustrating.   And looks bad.    Ummm, yea.   Plum lines are a great way to make sure you don’t end up with a slightly slanted floor.

I was hoping for help that had opposable thumbs, but the company was nice. 

Fourth:

Glue your planks.   I used 1:1 ratio of glue to water and used almost the whole gallon of glue.   Will a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of water to glue work?   Some say it does just fine.   I mixed it up in an old coffee can so that I could pop the lid on it and keep it fresh for use the next day.   I poured the glue mixture in a paint tray when coating the strips.  Dip the strip in the mixture and pull it through until thoroughly coated then use your fingers in a scissor style motion to squeegee off the excess.   I also applied glue to the floor using a paintbrush.   Apply strip to the floor, smooth it down and move on to the next strip.   Don’t forget to stagger your planks, mimicking a “real” wood floor.

*  I noticed that some strips would start to wrinkle immediately.  When that happened I would pull the strip up immediately, apply more glue to the floor and lay the strip back down.   This usually fixed the severe wrinkling.   I would have tried different techniques – aka more glue, less glue, etc., but it was midnight and I was too tired and at the “I just want this done stage.” I smoothed it out with my hands.  Is there no surprise there ended up with glue on my face and in my hair?   Nope.    But if you liked (when you were a kid) putting glue on your hands and letting it dry then peeling it off you will LOVE this.  It’s so much more awesome :)   I let the floor dry overnight.

Fifth:

Stain.   Oh the bane of my crafting.  I hadn't really worked with stain before, so experimenting on test strips taught me a lot.   I dipped the paint brush and then blobbed off the excess on extra paper until it was almost a dry brush.   This will put a very light coat of stain on the paper.  I also blotted the paper with an almost dry brush, applying some small streaks of stain and let it set for a few seconds and wiped.  This created some nice darker variations on the paper. I stained each plank individually.

The pictures above show the stained 'planks' after about an hour of drying.  The lighting is very bad.  But the pictures at least show the "planks".

Sixth:

Poly.   Yea, this step scares me more than staining.   I have heard about the poly drying cloudy and the thought of having to get down on the floor and sand it up makes my head hurt....  and my legs hurt, and my hands hurt.....    The first coat of Poly will go on Monday night.

Ok, the first coat of Poly went on Tuesday night and here is the result.  Again, the pics are kinda yellow, but you get the idea.

I will put a few more coats on the floor.  Since this is a guest bedroom, it is not a high traffic area, so I do not think it will need more than 5 coats.  The color is darker and richer than the pictures show.   I would say the color is closest to last pic shown in Step 5.  

!!!!!A big thank you to Kathryn for finding this idea and sharing it!!!!!!

***Another big thank you to Tammy who asked if I wanted help and didn't balk when I said yes, lol***

The only thing left to do with the floor is to finish putting on the poly, which takes me about 15 minutes or less to apply each coat.  Other than that, it's done!!!

Finished paper bag floors

Now, to hang pictures, finish the dresser, add side tables and lamps.....