Floor mosaic - part 1

Between the kitchen and living room is an archway - very pretty.  Under the archway, on the "floor" is a horrible semi-fractal cement mess with a thick electrical cable sticking out (won't discuss that here).  On one side is my beautiful hand-stained concrete floor.  On the other side is a beautiful brick floor.  The cement mess derives from the process of building the adobe walls (won't get into that here), not bricking over it when the living room floor was done and a variety of other factors that give me mental fatigue.

I made the decision to make lemonade out of lemons and put a tile mosaic under the arch.  I figure that would be the easiest solution to the problem.  The space is about 11"x45".  As a design motif, I chose Avanyu, the guardian of rivers and streams (like the one that  ocasionally floods 100 yards from my house, sigh).

The process itself is pretty straightforward.  First, obtain the matierals.  The floors on either side of the mosaic are reddish brown (brick and stained concrete).  Luckily, I found a nice terra cotta colored ceramic tile at the local Home Despot.  The design itself will be in white with accents in grey.  At first, I thought I would have a border in black, but decided against that after starting the project.

Ready to sketch the design onto one long piece of paper

The basic process for creating the mosaic is as follows: 1) sketch the entire life-sized design on a piece of paper; 2) cover the sketch with plastic wrap; 3) stretch nylon mesh over the plastic wrap and 4) glue your tiles onto the mesh over the appropriate part of the design.  I decided to use a very uniform layout of tiles for the background color and a random assortment for the design.  By doing this, the design itself stands out a bit more and emphasizes  the dragon-ness of the design.

Finished! Looks great

Notice in the picture above that the mosaic does not go to the edges of the sketch.  I wil fill this in during installation on the floor.  You can see the plastic wrap (pink), but not the mesh (it's there!).  After letting the glue dry, the whole thing is ready for the next step

A view of the entire piece

If necessary, and it was here, cut up the mosaic into managable 'tiles' for easy movement and installation. Even though the glue is only basic school glue, it is strong enough to hold the tiles onto the mesh.  The mesh is flexible (I used nylon tulle for this project, cheapskate that I am), but it will hold, trust me!

Cutting into pieces for shipping to NM

Close-up of cuting; mesh is clearly visible.

The next step is to package it up and ship it to the cabin.  Stay tuned for a future post about the installation and grouting.