Testing the Caps

Well, after a long delay, I am ready to start working on the promised bottlecap mural!  You've been waiting, I know.  I have settled on a design and I will follow this post with another in a few weeks describing the process and a few preview images.  Here, I'm highlighting the bottlecap test process and showing the basics of how the mural will be installed.

Small tiles of caps were made in IL, then taken out to NM.  The process is the same as the one I've described in other mosaic posts, the only difference is that the caps have to be cleaned with alcohol, then sprayed with an acrylic sealer (to prevent rust and UV fading.)

The mural will be installed directly in the mud plaster on my back porch.  Mud will be slathered on (here, quite sloppily) and the caps pressed directly into the mud.  

The process of working with the mud moistens the glue holding the tulle in place.  After a few swipes, the tulle can be pulled off and the glue bits come off easily.  I will probably finish the mural with a darker clay wash to give the spaces between the caps a darker background

These caps were installed last fall and after a long sunny winter of direct sunlight exposure, I will assess how much (if any) fading has taken place.  The caps shown actually have a few different surface treatments, so I'll know which sealer works best.  The mural will be installed on a shady north wall, but I want it to last as long as possible.

Stay tuned for more!

Happy New Year!

The garden sleeps ...

This past year was an interesting one.  A  lot of projects were started, many were finished.  And then, lots of ideas for a whole new batch of things to do.  During my last visit of the year, we had snow every night.  An hour or so after dawn, it would melt, but until then, everything was quiet and pretty.  Let's hope for snow and rain all winter, and less drought next spring.  I guess everyone in the desert wishes for water.  To everyone else, best wishes for a productive and peaceful new year.

frontdoor mosaic

The installation


As mentioned in previous posts, the doorways of this house are pretty ugly.  In this case, the doorway between the sunroom and living room was a series of cement blocks, open end up, filled with concrete and rocks, with a few tips of rebar sticking up for good measure.  Not fun to walk on, and not the least bit attractive.  I could live with it except the whole thing is also a huge dirt magnet.  I decided to do a simple mosaic to cover the whole thing.

View to the living room

The mosaic is made of basic ceramic tiles from Home Despot; two colors terra cotta and grey.  The hinge end of the doorway is plain, whereas the open end has a sun motif.  The main background is offset bars, simple but still quite attractive.  The whole thing was made in IL as usual, then shipped to NM for the install.  The process is the same as usual: adhesvie, slap it down, wait for set, then grout. In case you're wondering, the grout does not go to the edge of the brick, there is a hairthin space to allow for differential expansion of the materials. 

The final mosaic is attractive, smooth, and oh so easy to clean! Much better than the original.  Once the bricks are cleaned after the (endless) construction, the colors of the tile and brick will be more similar.  Very nice effect.



A Perfect Use for Reclaimed Lumber

A few weeks ago, Paul and I spent some time installing the aged wood (a.k.a. my Moms's old goat pen) in the sunroon (see previous post).  I thought it would be a quick process (measure, cut, apply), but Paul is much more a perfectionist than I am.  I repeatedly tried to convince him that everything in the cabin is rough and/or crooked, so level, straight, and beveled were not necessary.  I won part of the argument and he won another part. In the end, it took the better part of two days to do the window casings & sills and about 2/3 of the walls.


We put in a narrow shelf up high for some art work.  The pieces selected for the shelf and window wills were all boards that had been extensively chewed by one of my mother's favorite horses.  It's tricky to see in the photo above, but the sills have wonderful rounded, organic quality, each is different and there are more than a few tooth marks.  It was a unique way to incorporate a bit of family history into the project.




Paul was pretty adamant about beveling the edges around the door, and although it took a bit of thought to figure out the correct way to cut each board (many incorrect cuts were made!), the extra effort was worth it.  The door looks elegant and rustic at the same time.





The boards were all 1" thick (back in the days when a 1x12 was actually 1x12!), and although beautifully aged and silvery on the exterior, there was no decay on the interior.  The wood was purchased 17 years ago (the building of the goat pen coincided with the birth of a favorite horse), but when we cut into it, it smelled fresh and piney.  I honestly don't know if you can get good wood like that anymore. Quite a few knots had fallen out, but this gave us the opportunity to hide bits of old regional topo maps behind the wood.  We now have quite a few 'Easter eggs' hidden through the room highlighting local rivers, mountains, and towns.  Some of the wood has beetle damage and large splits, but it was slapped onto the wall no questions asked.  With a project like this, you never really know how it will end up, but I think it looks great and I can't argue with the cost (zero!).