(NEXTAR) – Penny for your thoughts on this woman’s bathroom renovation?
A woman on social media has gone viral after “tiling” her bathroom floor with pennies, but at least one eagle-eyed viewer has given her reason to doubt the DIY job.
Over the past year, Jordan Darian has been documenting the renovation of her and her husband’s LA-area home on TikTok, sharing videos of the upgrades they made to the exterior, interior, and even the reupholstery of some of her chairs. But it was her idea for the bathroom floor that earned one of her recent videos over 22 million views.
“$77 dollars that no one can ever spend again,” she joked in the caption of her June 1 post, referring to the United States currency she originally installed in her floor last year.
The video itself also showed part of Darian’s process, which first involved gluing the pennies over an existing floor and then sealing it with an epoxy resin. In the comments section, she claimed the entire floor cost her around $400 ($77 in pennies and around $300 for the resin).
One of the viewers, however, appeared to notice that she used at least one Lincoln cent (aka “wheat penny”) which, depending on its composition and year, could be very valuable. Darian responded by confirming that she had indeed used several such pennies in her floor.
In any case, Darian did not appear concerned — nor did she seem concerned when another user suggested she may have committed a felony by using U.S. currency as building material. (The Treasury Department only provides criminal penalties for those who “fraudulently” alter or deface coins, but there are “no sanctions” for those with no fraudulent intent.)
Darian later shared a more detailed tutorial for those who wanted to try the DIY flooring for themselves, along with the exact materials she used to secure the pennies to the floor. In an on-screen message, she also responded to viewers who assumed her new bathroom must smell like old pennies, putting those rumors to rest.
“The bathroom smells delightful since the pennies are sealed with resin,” she wrote.