A South African accountant has spent over 70 hours covering her floor with a total of 50,000 five-cent coins.

Karmen Swanepoel, who works as an accountant in the town of Ermelo in the South African province of Mpumalanga, called her feat “my craziest project ever”.

After spending over 70 hours on her cold floor, Swanepoel, who lives alone, had covered the 24-square-metre floor in coins.

Swanepoel said she is a creative person who likes to browse Pinterest for ideas and take part in artistic courses such as enamel work.

One day on Pinterest, she came across a floor covered in US pennies and loved the idea, deciding to create something similar in her own home with five-cent coins.

She said: “At first I considered laying them in a honeycomb pattern, which would have used fewer coins, but the accountant in me would not allow it so I decided to do it properly.

“I measured the space and did the calculations and figured I would need about 50,000 coins.”

Swanepoel began collecting the coins in September last year and approached staff at an Absa bank who kept the old coins and were happy to exchange them by the bag.

She had 48,500 coins by June and was close to finishing her dream project.

Swanepoel said: “It was a crazy idea to start in winter, because it is absolutely freezing. But it turned out to be a good thing because the epoxy process of mixing a base and hardener is delicate and it dries quickly, but more so in summer.

“If I did this in summer I would have needed 10 to 20 people helping me, but in winter I was able to do it all on my own.”

She said she is waiting for the finished result to harden so she can add a layer of epoxy and hire a contractor to complete the skirting boards.

She added: “It came out pretty nice. I am really chuffed.”