Sunday, March 18, 2012

Egg carton stone floor for Esther's house

Over the past few weeks Esther and I have been working on the 1:12 Tudor house she's building.  She wanted a stone floor in her kitchen, and I suggested we try egg carton stones, as I'd been saving egg cartons for about a year :)

We had three different colours of egg cartons, and cut a variety of rectangular pieces from them.  Esther started laying stones in the middle of the floor and worked outwards.  This meant a lot of cutting and fitting around the sides, but it wasn't terribly difficult.  ''

When all the stones were glued in place, then we added weak washes of three different colours -- dark slate grey, light grey and raw umber.  The egg cartons are VERY absorbent, of course, so there's no open time for this layer.  If you want to be able to work your glazes at this point, I'd suggest sealing the stones before you do your colour washes.

Then Esther sealed the floor with three coats of satin acrylic medium -- you could use varnish.  She'll play with the stones a bit more (maybe adding grout lines) but I think it looks pretty darned good!



12 comments:

  1. What a fantastic idea. One would have the look as well as the texture. I really must try that.

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  2. I love egg cartons! I like the way the floor turned out.

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  3. Thanks, MAC and Otterine! I've wanted to try this technique for ages, because I've seen some gorgeous results that other people have obtained. The texture is incredible, and it's really easy :) When I do my pub, I'm going to do a egg carton stone floor on the ground floor, I think :)

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  4. Wow thank you for sharing.............I throw my egg cartons at the old paper box. Now I've to save them.
    Hugs
    Dorien

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  5. Fantastyczna podłoga, bardzo realistyczna. Uściski!

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  6. It looks so organic and natural - I love it! I'll have to try doing that soon, though sadly in france the majority of egg cartons seem to bright green! I'll have to hunt around.

    How many did it take to make the floor?

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  7. Hello Nina,
    Great job. The floor looks very realistic. Trhe colors are perfect!
    All the best,
    Giac

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  8. The more I see of egg carton "Stone" the more I am convinced it is a Perfect solution! Light weight, easily worked.... easy to get.... and SO Convincing! This little house is going to be Beautiful!

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  9. Green egg cartons :) It took most of the tops of three boxes of egg cartons, Jonquille ...

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  10. Wonderful, excellent results!! Its a proven technique to imitate stone work. I've used it too, to "brick" parts of the outside facade.

    http://petit.punt.nl/?id=351273&r=1

    And it is sooooo convincing. Just like your floor, i love the crazy pattern adds to it too

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