Pennies, Pennies... and the basement!

This post has been a long time in the making.

I think we started working on our basement back in Aug/Sept.

I wanted it finished by Christmas...

Shane thought more like late Spring was more reasonable.

He was closer. :)

Around January I had a crazy idea.  I saw a site with floor ideas using pennies.  And seeing as how my hubby is a floor guy I figured he would either love it or hate it.

I think he loved it, but maybe loved me and my crazy ideas more and just went along with it... I'm still not sure.

It was a bigger undertaking than we first thought.  Shane talked to LOTS of people/installers/floor vendors etc. about the best application and epoxies.  And finally he decided on painting a black epoxy down first.  Glueing each penny down individually.  And then putting several coats of clear epoxy on top for a smooth glossy finish.

I had the pleasure of collecting the 50,000 pennies that I thought we would need.

At first it was embarrassing I would just ask for $20 worth of pennies at a time, and EVERY bank was curious what I would be doing with that many pennies.

Most thought it sounded awesome.

Some I had to assure that, "technically it wasn't illegal because we weren't "defacing" the coins, just taking them out of circulation."  AND coins aren't "legal tender" anyway.

But I'm guessing the government hopes this isn't a huge trend. :)

After about 10 banks, a really nice one offered to just order as many pennies in as I needed.

And then every day for the next couple weeks we opened pennies... and I started washing them.  Tried all different kinds of things and then opted to just throw $50 worth of pennies in the washer at one time.  It worked fabulously.  Of course they weren't cleaned perfectly and my hands were black for the next couple of weeks from sorting them.

Seriously pennies are gross! 

I sorted through EVERY.LAST. PENNY for literally 60 hours.  I pulled out all the pennies I thought looked gross, had gunk on them, the green oxidized pennies etc.  I got to know pennies VERY well.  And ended up needing LOTS more pennies than I had thought.

All in all I washed and sorted 90,000 pennies!

And had 30,000 that I returned.

We set aside the 1st weekend in March.

Lined up the troops.

Offered a little food as a bribe.

And worked our friends and family like slaves.

It started out slow.  Shane and I worked for 8 hours and only got this far...

So glad when Tayler showed up with friends to help.

And glad that a Jamba Juice got about 6 hours out of them!

(this is after a couple had left)

Then we added in a few more awesome friends.

Heaps, Carlsen's and Astle's

We wore them all out.

At the end of Friday we had 22 people working for a total of 98 hours.

Saturday we got up bright and early to get started again.

And were again blessed with helpful hands.

Saturday we had 12 people and 56 hours of work.

We finished at 9 PM Saturday night and were SO happy with the results. 

And then slowly... very slowly the basement came together.

And this morning I took these pictures.

Of an ALMOST finished basement!

That we LOVE!

Complete with a penny tree.

I did that even before the penny floor.

While Shane was off in Kansas working on a Temple.

I used an overhead projector, added glue dots to the back of the pennies and started placing.

Shane was shocked... yet impressed of course!

We added plenty of storage and play areas down there.

A whole space for books (mainly scrapbooks :))

 

 

 And of course the kids still love the dance room.

 

 Still more to do in the bathroom and a few minor things around.

But for the most part we are finished. :)

So are we glad we did the penny floor??

DEFINITELY!

Would we ever do it again??

NOT IN THIS LIFETIME!

24 people

154 hours

and 58,000 pennies

We couldn't have done it without our wonderful friends and family!!

Today, what I consider the finishing touch to the basement arrived.

A canvas that I have been working on for a very... very... very longtime.

I found pictures of all the trips we have taken together as a family over the last 18 years.  Labeled them with places/dates and compiled them all together into this masterpiece.

It couldn't be more perfect.

What an awesome addition that will be on one of those bare walls. :)

Our family can't wait to build more memories in our new space.

On that penny floor!

So yes... it was worth it!!