Wow, never heard of it. Looked it up and found a good link about it. Can't imagine it will hold luster very long, but maybe. Give it a try..Won't cost much. Don't spread the word too much as I wouldn't want it to put me out of business. Just kidding. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paper bag look

If you are looking for longevity of your final result, then coat with a professional-grade waterborne polyurethane.

Maybe I'll try it in a small area of our garage first. It looks great, but wonder how well it will wear. I'll just add it to my long list of DIY projects.

We did that on a wall a few years back! It was fun. We didn't poly it, but it was not meant to be walked on. Frankly, almost anything will hold up with enough poly. We painted over vinyl and it held up for years.

I have an old (1981) BH&G Decorating Book that shows this. They suggested multiple coats of polyurethane, perhaps as many as five, and said that this would make it as durable as most floors. It looked sort of like brown flagstone.

I think most of the instructions I've seen say 5-7 coats of polyurethane.

i practised on a small pc of particle board and found that the urethane didnt act as a glue; the paper just dried up and never adhered to board. could it be due to using urethane rather than POLYurethane? Might gluing pieces down before polyurthane work better?

I did this years ago and the floors (over above-grade concrete) have held up amazingly well. Now, I am ready to put down wood and have discovered I need to have my floors leveled with a self-leveling compound. I'm having a very hard time finding out if I will have adhesion problems. The floors have been sanded with a floor sander and are pretty well scuffed up, but I'm nervous about putting down LevelQuik or SkimFlow. The original construction paper and Elmer's (10 years old) has 'become one' with the concrete. Has anyone else had experience with this? Thanks!

I'm with millworkman. The shot blasting of the surface is probably your chance to get rid of the paper. This is one of the major down falls of a permanent DIY flooring project (such as paper or paint or garage epoxy from Home Depot). Once you decide to change out the floor for a HIGHER level product, you have to get rid of every scrap of the DIY thing.

You will need more than just scuff up the floor. You need to grind off the paper and the glue...which is tough work. Or you shot blast it and get it over with. Either way you need fresh concrete with nothing sticking to it (including glue).

@millworkman good thoughts, indeed. The concrete sure did stick to the paper, though! LOL! Or vice versa. We probably will grind off the paper, but had one installer mention the possibility of using a primer he described as "paint on and it feels much like gritty or sandy paint". He said it will adhere to the paper and can be topped with a leveling compound without any problems. Not sure what product he's referring to, but it sounds lovely, if it exists. The thought of concrete dust throughout the house...........

@SJMcCarthy Yes, the paper DIY floor seemed like an awesome idea at the time, and it has held up amazingly well. Even after roughly 10 hours of an orbital sander using a 36-grit sanding disc, the paper is still solidly stuck to the floor. We have two other rooms in question, though, and maybe you can help with this? Two stained concrete floors both sealed with AFM's Safecoat Mexeseal (I think it's soy based? but been 10 years) some sheen low VOC. Grind these areas as well? Thanks so much!

I do not know that I would trust any sort of "miracle primer", I would want to see the paper gone.

@millworkman Thank you!

You've done the grinding and it is still there. Time to bring out the shot blaster. A shot blasting machine uses tiny balls of metal (aka "shot" as in buckshot) and BLASTS the balls into the concrete. This removes the top layer of concrete exposing the bare aggregate below.

Once the top layer is gone (can be 1-2mm removed...not much) you can then go ahead and do your leveling. That's the level of damage you have to do to the paper to get rid of it.