Floor Mosaic - Part II

The mosaic for the space between the kitchen and living room was installed during a recent trip. (The creation of the mosaic was described in a previous post.)

Once at the cabin, preparation of the site became a time consuming process. The gap between the living room floor (brick) and the kitchen floor (stained concrete) was deep (4”-5”), uneven and dirty. The two floor surfaces aren’t level to each other, so when filling the gap, a slope had to be created to prevent a toe busting ledge.

Mind the gap!

I had to mix numerous, small batches of concrete and fill the gap slowly. It took nearly a bag of concrete, which surprised me, and after about three hours, the gap was filled. This was a big psychological jump for me because that gap has been irritating for a long time. Before the kitchen floor was poured in ’08, the gap was a hump, an uneven toe-grabber that captured an endless supply of sand, pebbles, nails, etc. Thank goodness it’s gone!

The mosaic was installed with thinset and grouted with a terra cotta colored grout (the color I’m using for most of the tile work in the living spaces). In hindsight, I should have used a darker color, which would have blended a bit better with the brick, but overall, I’m pleased.

The guardians in place - finally!

The final mosaic looks very nice and now I have a relatively even floor surface throughout the cabin. One more piece of the puzzle complete!

Bottlecap Mural Update

Sorted caps awaiting storage.

As of this writing I have about 5000 bottlecaps.  My estimate is that I will need approximately 15,000 caps, so I'm about 1/3 of the way there.  Yay!

I receive donations every week and I'm still finding unique caps.  Some people give me a few caps at a time and others give me gallon bags full.  Some people are very consistent in what they drink, others strive for variety.  I work in a library and word has spread about my project, so I'm actually getting caps from total strangers now - the project has definitely gained a life of it's own!

One square foot of caps - that's a lot of beer!

I've started thinking about design ideas and found a book on my own shelves that may help me out.  Designs and Patterns from North African Carpets and Textiles may be my major source of inspiration.  Most of the designs are based on an offset grid (the caps above are arranged in this manner); many are strip-based (borders), but others are whole carpet patterns.  There are a lot of geometrics, but plenty of animals and plants too.

I will need about 100 caps per square foot and I think I have enough cap diversity to start trying samples.  Stay tuned for more!