THAT is pretty cool.

I've mosaic'd bowling balls with pennies. And I thought that was time consuming!

The woman who did the floor is a Maine mosaic artist, named Amanda Edwards. There was a lovely feature on her in the Portland Press Herald about a year or so ago. I can't figure out how to post a link to the article from my phone. It contains additional pictures that were amazing. I remember the back of her island is a tile mosaic of birch trees, and there is something with shells as well.

Seems to me that would be hard to keep clean. Dirt would get trapped in the small spaces between the pennies. Also likely a huge pain to take up should anyone ever want to change the floor.

link for localeater

Here is a link that might be useful: mosaic artist

I think it is incredibly cool!

The article onedogedie linked to says the the floor is grouted, then polyurethaned, so I don't think it would be hard to clean:

"Once she had an area covered with pennies, Edwards would cover it with a brownish grout. Then she'd wipe the grout in a circular motion until it was no longer covering the pennies, but merely sitting in the spaces between them. The grout forms a nice dark background to the pennies.

Once she finished covering the whole floor with pennies (and a few dimes here and there), she used a couple coats of polyurethane to protect it. The polyurethane makes the floor easy to clean, Edwards says, as easy as any non-wax floor. It also makes the floor smooth to walk on. Walking in socks on the floor, it's almost impossible to feel individual coins."

Thanks for sharing this, Poohpup. Can't wait to hear about "The Great American Penny Crisis of 2013" when everyone copies this idea. ;) I think it's beautiful but I'm far too lazy to try it myself. Momentarily, I thought of covering one wall in my powder room with pennies, then realized money in bathrooms reminding me of the saying "flushing money down the toilet".

That floor is awesome!!! It amazes me what people come up with when it comes to decorating their kitchen :) thanks for the share it was inspiring

I'd seen this on HGTV, I think a bathroom show.

realism, key word is "epoxy" then the explanation of grout. If not, I think every one would lose their minds.

I can't imagine making that floor. I'm so anal I'd be lining up the pennies so the dates were exactly the same, nothing was tilted or -- God forbid -- showing the wrong side. I think it would be a nightmare and the looney wagon would have to come take me away.

Imagine someone trying to steal that copper.

localeater, thanks for the info on the artist who did this kitchen. And thanks, onedogedie, for the link. Loved reading more about it and seeing a few more pictures.

Christine, I thought you were nuts when you were saying that you'd want to line up all the pennies so they were exactly the same. Then I read the article and saw that that is exactly what she did! Oh my! And I thought it would have taken endless patience just putting them down randomly! It never would have occurred to me to have them all facing the same way.

I don't think the floor would be hard to keep clean at all. It sounds like it is a very smooth surface with the grout she used and the expoxy. And if you decided to change out the floor, I bet taking it up would be easy. The pennies give a nice hard edge for a scraper to grab and lift up. I'd kill me to remove something like that after so much work!

Loved seeing the other photos of her kitchen. Loved the shell BS that she used but THAT would be a nightmare to clean!

Here's a diy penny countertop, the pennies are not lined up but it still looks great.

Here is a link that might be useful: diy penny countertop

I love penny counter tops in bars-err I mean restaurants. So it makes sense to try to do that at home. The epoxy actually seems pretty easy to use. A Canadian HGTV show She's Crafty did a pair of tv trays with pretty, sparkly paint and then epoxy. Looked super cool, and I've wanted to try it.

You know, the "material" for this is not that cheap! The pennies will cost you $2.95/sq. ft. (Sounds like a price that is marked down from $3, but that is just how many pennies it takes to cover 1 sq. ft.) Add the epoxy in, and it probably is more than most tiles.

I cannot imagine doing the work! And lining them up would definitely drive me bonkers, and seems rather unnecessary to me.

Let's hope this doesn't catch on. We (taxpayers) all just subsidized her floor by $2.95 a square foot (it cost 2 cents to make a 1 cent penny)!

Well, to be fair, her subsidy was only $1.48/sq. ft. in that case. (She presumably paid a penny for each of those pennies.)

Edited to delete what I wrote above. I now realize that I had it wrong, and the poster above was correct. Mea culpa.

This post was edited by Angie_DIY on Thu, Feb 21, 13 at 23:43

Now I know what to do with all of those pennies!
Just kidding but great ideas - probably the US Mint would have a fit - but still pretty darn cool!

Canada just ceased productions of pennies (because they cost 2 cents to make here too I expect), it just doesn't make economic sense to produce them. They will be out of circulation within a couple of years. Doing a DIY job like this here would preserve a bit of history I guess, in an interesting way too.

You can actually buy a jig to line them up, but it is still time consuming. Something that might keep my 5 and 7 year old occupied for awhile, though :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Copper Penny Tile Jig

that is so cool!!!!

love it!!!

Yes, I've seen several photos of these as floors and counters. I recall one person saying she glued them first to mosaic tile mesh (didn't lay them directly in the floor), so they could be installed like regular mosaic tiles. It looks like that's what the tile jig is for -- it's shown on top of tile mesh. I don't know where the epoxy comes in -- most I've seen on floors are just grouted and sealed like normal tile, and some used as counters also have a shiny poly top coat. Cheaper than most tile.

Oh, just went to the link -- she did use epoxy! Hmmm...