Thoughts on floors.
My first ever attempt at making a mosaic of any sort, was for a tiny bathroom floor in the stone house that my partner and I built on a spur of land overlooking the little town of Rosewood in South East Queensland, Australia (1986-88)
The area was a bit less than 3 sq m all up and L shaped. I had a heap of old mid 20thC mosaic patterned tiles bought from a dump scavenger, and they were all different shapes and colours. The space to be tiled was so awkward and the tile shapes so random, that a friend and I had to develop a work system. We each had an off cut of plywood and would sit outside and arrange the odd shaped tiles until we had a small square or rectangular shaped pattern worked out. Then we carefully carried our plywood into the bathroom, spread a bit of adhesive and laid out the pattern, butting up against the adjoining pieces or the walls. The stone walls were a bit wavy so this allowed us to roughly follow that wall line. Any small holes were filled with spare tiles at the finish.
Because the colour palette of that period was almost sombre - moss greens, lots of browns with the odd maroon or turquoise - I used some white to lift it and the floor looked like a cross between a granny quilt and a Persian carpet.
That floor was still intact and with no cracks, 17 years later when I sold the little stone house and moved on. I would have taken it with me if it was in any way possible, but I do sometimes come across the remnant tiles in my stash.
What that little floor did though, was ignite a love of pattern, colour and richness allied with the unique look, feel and resilience of mosaic.
In the next house that I built of straw bale, the laundry, toilet and bathroom floors were also quite different and were pieced together from offcuts and fragments of tile, glass, granite and marble that came from the leftovers of the Hotel Versace build on the Gold Coast, Australia. I still have lots of pieces leftover that sit quietly waiting for their chance to shine.
My floor tiling efforts have always been small and I won’t be doing any more (at least I don’t think so) but I still love the unique look of hand -made mosaic floors and will continue to admire them where ever they are.