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Floors Continued

Before I got SO Distracted by Halloween, Dear Readers, you might remember that I was working on the Cupboard House hallway, painting the wall murals. Well, I realized that in order to complete the wall murals and attach them in place, I really needed to have the floors completed first! And having had Such success with the egg carton bricks and REAL mortar in the Kitchen..... I thought I should continue with this method in the front hall.... only THIS time I wanted to make "marble" floor tiles from cardboard! I have read many other blogs where people use this method quite successfully, so I thought it was time to try it myself!
So I pulled out some sheets of cardboard.... the kind that is the backing for pads of paper..... and painted the "marble" patterns in the colors I wanted to use. In this case the floor would be black and white squares with accents in red and green. I really was very quick with the painting because once it is all cut into small squares the pattern looks quite realistic with a minimum of detail to the "graining" of the marble.

Here you can see my painted cardboards.

Next I cut out a plain piece of cardboard in the shape of the Hall floor and drew the pattern on it to guide the placement of the tiles.

And here I have begun to attach the cut squares to the piece of cardboard.
I left a small gap around all the pieces for the mortar to fill.

And I worked around the circle where there will be a "Compass Rose" as another reminder of the years Clarence spent at Sea......

Here you can see the beginnings of the Compass Rose......

And the Compass Rose Completed....

And here is a closeup of the Completed Compass Rose, Mortar included......

And the whole floor completed....

but not yet in place in the house.....

Here it is glued in place in the Cupboard House.....

forgive the dark NIGHT Photo......

Oh Dear.... an even Darker and Gloomier view.....

(It is so DARK here now.....!)
I will have to get some better shots for you soon......
But I am VERY pleased with the way it turned out!

And I have also started to work on the Floor of the Dining Room of the Cupboard House! This floor is to be a dark stained hardwood floor of the type so common to Victorian Houses here in the States. They were rarely made in any fancy patterns because they usually were covered in beautiful plush carpets! So I started to attach the "woodsies" which make lovely hardwood boards. I started by gluing several perimeter rows around the room. I figured that once the small corners by the chimney were filled in I would just complete the design in simple rows. But then for some reason I decided to get a little fancy in those corners....... and now I am not sure whether I should continue with the plan to have a plain floor.... or make a more elaborate pattern to continue what I have started!

Here is a closeup of what I did.... just put a couple of "vertical" rows with the "horizontal" ones...

And here is the other side..... where I realized that because the woodsies are NOT all the same width..... the pattern on one side was larger than the one on the other and I had to carefully adjust it so both sides would look the same.......

Here is what it looks like right now.... with a stand-in for the fireplace........ and me not able to make up my mind! Should I torment myself to build a complicated patterned floor that eventually will just be covered in carpet? And if I go with the plain model.... will I always regret NOT taking the opportunity to explore the fancier floor? Will I build other houses where I can make elaborate floors, or is THIS my opportunity? Am I the only one out there who torments themselves like this?

Decisions.... decisions.....!

And meanwhile.... lest you think I have FORGOTTEN it...

I AM still working on the Great Hall floor tiles for my Castle!

I am getting closer and closer to having enough tiles painted and sealed to begin the process of attaching them! But here again.... I have to decide whether I am going to use real Grout or not....

The tiles are really irregular in size and thickness.... and they are much thicker than the cardboard tiles that worked so well with the grout. I think I am going to have to make a small test sample to figure out what works best.....

But meanwhile, as you can see... I still have a ways to go......!

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