Cover Your Floors in a Blanket of Riches with Penny Tiling

Will a barefoot person or a pet, who is in constant contact with the metal, absorb enough to become poisoned? I suppose a clear coating could be applied, but that would detract from the natural look. I would like to do the same in nickels, but I would be concerned about the same harmful effect.

The Cup Cafe at Hotel Congress in Tucson also did their floor in pennies. They used 177,000 pennies to do it, laid them on the mesh then had them set like tile. They used brown acrylic paint between the pennies rather than grout, and then laid multiple of floor varnish, then wax. They strip and re-do it about once a year. It took about three weeks to make all the tiles, and then about two days to set them. It's pretty damn nice. And, as a bonus, the penny-tiles cost less than regular tiles.

If you're gonna go to all the trouble of flipping them heads up and facing them the right direction, you might as well go and put them all into chronological order too. And make order out of their minting locations.

For the guy who wrote the question above about absorbing copper when walking around barefoot - You should be fine with this. Remember that your drinking water flows through copper pipes. Copper is considered an essential mineral and it's actually good to get small amounts in your diet (though i wouldn't recommend eating pennies for breakfast). I'd be more concerned about the dirt and grime that easily accumulates on pennies, but if you're willing to do the upkeep, it's a nice look.

Doesnt this qualify as defacing government currency? For example you can't melt pennies down for their copper. If so, this useage qulaifies as a federal offense.