Without a doubt, I would say that my favorite kind of flooring is wood plank porcelain tile; it has all of the beauty of hardwood, but the durability and price tag of porcelain tile. In other words, perfect flooring if you want something beautiful, but worry about durability because you live with a zoo pets (two dogs, in my case) or younger children.
Today I got to wondering, what other flooring options are there besides the usual tile, hardwood and carpet? This led me on an extensive search through the deepest corners of the internet, and although I got lost a few times (I stumbled across a new lighting line by Vanilla Ice [yep, you read that right] that I had to spend a few minutes on. Lights, lights baby!), I ended up finding some pretty unique and cost friendly alternatives. Here are my five favorite!
Paper Bag Floor: This floor is so unique! It looks like a cross between leather and something else... laminate maybe? Best of all, it's not expensive because the main material is paper bags! Check out this tutorial on lovelycraftyhome for instructions.
Painted Floor: Wow, this looks like it took dedication! For someone with a shorter attention span when it comes to projects like these (like myself), you can opt for a bigger, less intricate pattern. Here's a look at Carrie's journey in completeing this masterpiece on LovelyEct.
Doodle Floor: Similar to the painted floor, but more suited to laminate floors. All you need for this one is a pack of sharipes and some ideas! (Also a sealant if you want to take the extra step.)
Penny Floor: I love the look of this penny floor! Sparkly and shiny things are always good in my book. A penny floor will generally run $1.96-$2.32 a square foot, depending on the spacing of your pennies. If you don't want to spend the whole time hunched over the floor gluing them down, there's also the option of gluing them to square foots of mesh, then laying them down like tile. Here's a good tutorial from mandolinmosaics on how Amanda went about doing hers.
Flooring Sample Flooring: First off, I'm not promoting the exploitation of free samples from Home Depot. Okay, now that that's out of the way... again, another floor that took tons of dedication! This picture first originated on Reddit and has become an internet hit since then. I tried to find the original post to see if the guy said how long it took him to gather all of these floor samples, but I couldn't locate it. Best guess is a very long time. Even though it's not particularly ethic to take this many samples, I still thought it deserved a spot on this post for the pure dedication it must have taken.
Which one is your favorite? Do you have any other unconventional flooring ideas?