Several years ago I came up with the idea to tile the bathroom floor of the Lily house. I decided to use cut-up pieces of paint sample cards for the tiles. You can purchase dollhouse-sized tiles to use but I wanted to try a more economical method. I took a wallpaper sample with me to my local Home Depot to help me choose which color to get. I picked out six different colors to use to make tiles. Each set of three colors were different shades of pink and green. I took several sheets of each color to cut into tiles.
Once I had the paint sample sheets I began to make the floor. I chose a thin sheet of cardboard to use as the floor. I made a pattern by first laying the sticky side of contact paper onto the bathroom floor of the dollhouse and cutting it to size with an X-acto knife. I then pulled up the contact paper off the floor and stuck it onto brown wrapping paper. After making sure that the contact paper was stuck smoothly to the paper, I cut away the excess paper and was left with a pattern to use to cut the cardboard to the correct size. I put the pattern on the cardboard I had chosen to use as the floor and drew around the outside edge of it with a pen. I lifted off the pattern and then cut around the lines with scissors. Once the floor was cut out, I tested it in the bathroom to check the fit. The cardboard fit and then I painted it with several coats of white acrylic paint. The white paint on the cardboard was going to be the tile grout.
Then I began the arduous task of cutting the paint sample cards into tiles. Each card had the color number and name printed on it. This made part of the card unusable, so I didn’t cut those parts into squares. I saved the names of the paint samples in case I found later that I would need more. Each paint sample card had it’s own Ziploc bag. Also when the paint dried on the floor I put that into a large Ziploc bag to keep it protected.
As it turned out it was a good thing that I did that I put the floor into the bag because this project took very long to complete. I started out by first cutting the paint samples on a self-healing cutting mat into thin strips that were ¼” wide using an X-acto knife. When this was completed I then cut the strips into ¼” squares. This was a tedious process and I found could only be done in small segments at a time due to the fact that it required me to sit still and make repeated cutting movements. Finally in 2011, I finished cutting the paint sample cards and was ready to start gluing them onto the white painted cardboard floor once I had come up with a pattern. I spent some time playing around with colored pencils testing out different color patterns on graph paper. After awhile, I came up with a good pattern idea.
Using the pattern I had made on graph paper as a guide I began gluing the paint sample tiles to the floor being careful to allow some of the white to show between the tiles. I used the Easy Flow Tacky glue for my glue and thinned it out on the cardboard using a plastic card saved just for this purpose. It took about a week for me to finish gluing all the tiles to the cardboard. The floor tiles weren’t perfectly aligned, but they didn’t look terrible. Looking at my own bathroom floor I could see imperfections in it and so I was satisfied with my work on this floor. Thankfully, I had gotten enough tiles so I didn’t need to get any more paint sample cards. To fill in blank spaces at the ends instead of cutting the tiles to fit into these empty spaces, I glued larger tiles to fill the space and let the excess of the tile overhang the floor. Once those parts were filled in, I set the floor aside to dry completely. When it was dried I turned the floor over and using scissors cut away the excess tile so that it was flush with the outside edge of the floor.
When the floor was completely tiled, I tested the fit in the dollhouse bathroom. I was happy with the fit and tested out how it would look with the furniture in it by putting the sink, bathtub, and screen in the room. To ensure that the tiles would stay glued to the floor, I decided to paint it with clear acrylic varnish. I had done the same thing with the kitchen floor and was pleased with the results. I painted the floor with two coats of the clear acrylic varnish.
When the varnish was dry, I cleaned the bathroom floor with Endust as a way to remove the dust and any dirt that might be there. Then squeezed a bead Easy Flow Tacky glue onto the floor. I spread the bead glue into a thin glue layer with a plastic card and then put the tiled floor on top of the glue. I pressed the floor firmly into place and covered it with waxed paper to protect it was being marred by anything during the drying process. Then weighted the floor down with small books, a dumbbell, and a small brick.
