You know those rolls of basic brown craft paper we’ve all used in grade school art class or to wrap schoolbooks, sandwiches, and presents? There’s a totally crazy, unbelievably creative way to use the affordable material: frugal flooring. Yup, flooring. The folks over at An Oregon Cottage have used it to create the look of hardwood without shelling out the dollars for real wood, and the results are pretty incredible.

Real hardwood floors are beautiful, classy touch for your home, but truth be told, they’re extremely expensive. Home Advisor says that in 2017, home owners will spend between $2, 583 – $6,478 on hardwood floors for their home. That’s no small sum of money, especially for something you’ll be walking on, scuffing, and dirtying over the next decade or so.

So what can you do if you crave that look of hardwood but you can expensive flooring right now? You use this clever DIY to get the trendy aesthetic you want for a cost you can live with. And all it takes is that brown craft paper we were talking about before.

To start, you’ll need to get rolls of craft paper from the store. Prepare them for the project by tearing them into approximately 18″x 18″ squares (that doesn’t have to be exact) and then crumble each square to give the paper texture.

Next, the family tore up their carpet and the layers of foam underneath to lay down the paper, a.k.a. their new “hardwood” floors! They chose to do this in a room, but they’ve used done this project on all types of areas in their home using this technique.

The end result? It actually, realistically looks like hardwood flooring! You can get this cheap version of the real thing, and no one ever has to know the floors aren’t “real” — unless you’re bragging about what a steal this inexpensive project was, of course.

The family who runs An Oregon Cottage, a lifestyle and life hacks YouTube channel, claim that they’ve used this technique on highly trafficked areas of their home, like their staircase, and they’ve seen little to no disruption of the brown paper. To see exactly how they pull off this crafty solution to your flooring woes, make sure to watch their video below!

What do you think of this clever hardwood alternative? Share your thoughts on this project in the comments section below.