BROWN PAPER BAG BATHROOM FLOOR

Today I am going to share with you my brown paper bag floor that I did in my 1/2 bathroom.  Now, don't go calling me the bag lady since this will be my third project using this technique! LOL This is the bathroom that our guests use.  We had a contractor come in about 5 years ago and stain our concrete floors.  What a mistake that was!  The contractor was a guy just starting out and he  made a huge mess of our guest bathroom floor.  He stained it ebony (black) when it should have been stained using aged leather.  You can barely turn around in our 1/2 bath so you can imagine how dark it made the small room look.  I was so upset when I came home and saw what he had done.  It looked like a dark cave.  I wanted to cry.  OK - well maybe I did cry.  But if you would have seen it you would have cried too!  What was done was done and so it was decided he would skim a new layer of concrete on top of the mistake and then stain it using the aged leather.   

This is what it ended up looking like minus the big grey hole. 

After about a year later though the concrete started chipping up on its own.  It looked horrible and I was so embarrassed when people would come over and use the 1/2 bath.  It has looked this way for 5 painful years!  I have just been sick to my stomach over the whole thing!  Until  my daughter mentioned the brown paper bag technique she had seen on Pinterest.  

My brown paper bag counter (click HERE to see that post) was my test of this brown paper bag (brown contractors paper) technique.  The counter was partially hidden by the bar so I figured if it came out bad no one would really see it unless they were at the bar.  And, that it would be easy enough to remove if it didn't work out.  Since that went so well, I decided that the next step would be to tackle the front stairs of our entryway (click HERE to see that post).  The stairs turned out great!  I thought, what have I got to lose?  Might as well try it in the bathroom too!  I got in that bathroom and started chipping away at the concrete layer.

I got most of the concrete chipped up.  A long and unpleasant task I must say.  Tell me - why do boys/men have to be so messy.  I mean really!  What gives.  Anyhow, you can see that on the left side of the toilet there is still a strip of concrete.  I could not for the life of me chip that away.  It was just physically impossible.  There was not enough room between the wall and the toilet to swing the hammer without risking cracking or breaking the toilet.  That or I was just tired and over the whole chipping up concrete thing.  No really, I couldn't get the hammer back there and get enough leverage.  As you can see on the right side of the toilet I began laying the brown paper right on top of the foundation.  Here in Houston we don't have basements so for our "foundation"  we have a slab of concrete instead of a sub floor.

This is what the rest of the process looked like.

And yes, I went right on top of the strip of concrete I couldn't chip up.

This is what the floor looked like once the glue dried.  You would never know that I went right over that pesky piece of concrete I couldn't chip up.  That is the beauty of this technique.  It is soooooo forgiving.

Pre-stain.

Once the paper dried I used the same tried and true technique that I used on the counter top and the stairs.  I added the red oak Minwax stain.  Then sealed the floor with 8 layers of polyurethane.  

This is what the end result looks like.  We've been walking on it for about a month now and it still looks brand new.  Feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment if you have any questions about this or any other project.  I have one more project using this technique that I will share with you in the near future.  Yea, yea - I'm the bag lady.  I promise you though - once you start this technique you will not want to stop!  Have a great day!

xoxo,

Susan

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