When we moved into our rental apartment, the bathroom floor was gross. One crazed evening, we tore up the ancient linoleum, revealing the unfinished and equally unpleasant concrete, which we lived with for many years until our landlord took pity on us and put in tiles. We wish we'd been clever enough to come up with this Craftster's solution...
DuctTapeAddict, as she calls herself, used duct tape in a variety of colours, which she simply laid down in squares. You can go colour happy, as she does, or stick to a more minimalist palette, depending on your own colour scheme. Once you've mastered simple squares or triangles, check out Maxwell's email on the inspirational Jim Lambie's installation at MOMA, a project which could take you from bathroom to living room and beyond. For more of DuctTapeAddict's work, click here
Images from DuctTapeAddict's Post on Craftster
wont that ruin the floor underneath?
view Oneformybaby's profile
Looks totally cool in the right space, but for us renters, I'm concerned about the gooey sticky residue left when the tape is removed at move-out.
view EastOfSeattle's profile
I think this would leave alot of sticky residue on the floor when you peel it up. Probably not very renter safe.
view Laura's profile
What happens when it gets hot and gooey on the edges of each piece?!
view JG's profile
hope it doesn't leave the floor sticky.
view STYLeyes's profile
As she says:
"and its kind of getting gross like the edges are sticky and peeling a bit so like hair and other crap is like stuck to the floor"
and should you chose to do this, you can probably kiss your deposit goodby.
(here in LA, it's gaffer's tape, not duct tape.)
view Palmetto's profile
duct tape and gaffer's tape are two completely different things.
view mscot's profile
@mscot I know, but it was meant to be moderately amusing, meaning that in Hollywood, one would use gaffer's tape, not non-pro dust tape. Sigh.
Either way, it's hideous.
view Palmetto's profile
As for the inspirational Jim Lambie; Try Roberto Scafidi instead. Apparently he'd already been doing this!
view Jet'set's profile
Crazy, but brilliant- if the floor is gross already, why not duct tape it?
view illmethinks's profile
Omg, thats looks like a TON of fussy cut and stick over what appears to be planks of i assume, wood. Which, dude... rent a sander or coat of paint.
view DahliaCactus's profile
COOL floor!
It reminded me of this ridiculously expensive cabinet at Conran shop in NYC.
http://www.conranusa.com/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=21305&cid=Storage&language=en-US
view phase2phase's profile
This looks really cute, but it isn't practical. The first thing I'd be worried about was whether it could be mopped. Could it?
But yes, as Palmetto said, the sticky stuff left behind afterward would probably ruin your chances of getting that security deposit back, no matter how crappy the floor was before.
view Jocelyn<3's profile
I'll just hop on the naysaying bandwagon here. This is a super bad idea. That much duct tape isn't even going to come cheap. There's nothing ecological about it.
I can think of about a dozen better ways to deal with crappy floors, starting with paint and some shellac.
view amanda bee's profile
Just an FYI, The MoMA Jim Lambie piece took a good week of 5 Jim Lambie's assistants to install, had weekly maintenance, and left a residue when finally taken off.
view jamesdamian's profile
Can it be sealed with something to prevent the edges from getting messy? About the floor underneath, if it is already gross, if this is taken off one would have to put something else on top of it. So I would not worry about the floor underneath.
Some one here have any ideas about sealing it. Cause it does look great.
view click212's profile
An alternative to duct tape that worked well for me and did not leave a sticky residue on the floor was contact paper (you know the kind that you line your kitchen shelves with). It's cheap and turned out to be pretty durable though I would stay away from using white for obvious reasons. I did a cute black and white checkerboard pattern and had to occasionally replace the white squares where there was heavy foot traffic.
view geographix's profile