Can you guess what this tiling is made out of?
None other than honest Abe himself.
Indeed, every last little speck of this “tile” is made out of pennies – the shinier ones making up that cool little center border and the other shittier ones interspersed with each other to create a kind of bronze-y looking Heinz 57 variety of copper coloring. It was initiated by this guy and his wife (a tile store worker) who got bored of traditional floor tiles (I would too if that’s all I saw every damned day). Thus began this innovative undertaking, and they even involved their little one (AKA pawned the work off on her when mom got tired and lost interest in finishing what she started; the bastards).
(“Daddykins, would you be a lamb and pass me that pencil to gouge my eye out with which would be better than sitting inside and doing this while my friends are all outside playing? Thank you, darling.”)
At first, I’m looking in closely – trying to see how the edges meet up and not understanding. Pennies are round – so why do they all seem to fit together so perfectly like patches on a soccer ball? And why do I feel like if I did this (and I really do kinda wanna do it, now that I see how cool it looks), it wouldn’t even turn out a penny-outta-a-dollar fraction as awesome looking at theirs?
Maybe that’s ‘cause they used self leveling epoxy. And construction adhesive.
And I don’t know what either’a those are.
Or how to use them.
Either way, the end product looks ridiculously, surprisingly… opulent? Or tacky? I’m not sure which. I just know that the unconventional look makes me feel like there should be an altar with a garlanded god-statue from some Eastern religion sat at the top of that picture instead of a washing machine and dryer unit. And that the finished piso de pennies product makes far more “cents” visually after completion than it does hypothetically while I try to imagine it in my mind – ‘cause if my mom and dad dreamed up and suggested this project like this guy and his wife did, I might start scrounging together whatever pennies I had to find them a nice nursing home to rest their poor, obviously deteriorating brains. Actually, that’s probably not true. Knowing me and the madness they’ve both gifted me, I’d likely dive headfirst into it ‘cause I’ve always wanted to literally dive headfirst into a basement filled with money like Uncle Scrooge McDuck.
Even though I’d probably break my own brain if I tried it in this case.
“She’ll have to settle for the copper after THAT landing.”
#zing