Marble Floor

I woke up this morning determined to start the Entrance Hall floor, which is to be black and white marble tiles laid in a checkered pattern on the diagonal.  A border of black marble will outline the space for a finished look.  I've already written before about how coo-coo I am for this type of floor treatment.  I put in an old-fashioned black and white checkered linoleum floor in my 'real life' kitchen, but alas! I have never been able to afford the 'real deal,' though a marble floor in my humble 1908 bungalow would look rather silly, I'm afraid...Oh, well at least I can live vicariously through the much grander rooms of Merriman Park!

My kitchen table and work station!

 After reading Giac from English Manor Dollhouse's excellent tutorial on creating a marble tile floor, I was 'ret to go!' as the children used to say.  First, I cut a piece of illustration board to fit the room. Then, I penciled in the outline of the border.  I added some 'guide lines' on the illustration board that I could follow in order to keep the pattern lined up.

I had already purchased some marbleized paper for my floor, so I was able to skip Giac's step of making them from scratch.  This was sheer laziness on my part because I used to be one of those people who 'faux-finished' every and I mean every surface I could get my sea-sponge on!  For real.  Ugh!

Guess that's why I opted to buy the papers --because I couldn't bring myself to go down the faux path again!

But I digress.

Anyway, then I carefully measured out and used a sharp blade to cut out all the individual tiles. Mine are one inch square.  This is probably the most difficult part.  Because no matter how hard you try, no matter how anal-retentive you are, your tiles are not going to all be the exact, same size.  (And if yours are, I hate you)!

Next, I started gluing down the tiles.  Start in the center of the room as you would in 'real life' and work your way towards the outer perimeter.

Find the center of your room by using a straight-edge from corner-to-corner and draw an X in the middle.  There's your 'starting point.'  This technique works as well on ceilings to mark chandelier placement.

The advantage to using the marbled papers as opposed to tiles cut from the thicker illustration board, as Giac did so brilliantly in his Victorian, is that you can cheat a little and overlap the tiles a little if you need to.  Of course that also means I won't be able to 'grout' the tiles as he did.

This marbled paper has a shiny finish to simulate the real thing.

Just be patient and keep going!  Use a sharp blade and a straight edge to trim across the line for the border.

I cut the border pieces two inches long by 1/2 inch and mitered at all corners.

Instead of trimming the marbled paper tiles across the front of the room, I folded them over the edge of the illustration board and glued them to the underside.

Before you know it, all the tiles are laid!  I am now going to put several coats of a clear finish over the entire floor and then score the joints with a sharp knife.  I'm really pleased with the way it's turning out and am inspired to move right along on to the stairway and walls.