First weeks

Organizing, planning, measuring, mixing, matching. Chopping, sorting, cleaning, sealing. These are the tasks we’ve been busy with in the first weeks of working on our commission. We foraged and accumulated materials from the Habitat ReStore and our local metal scrap yard, then we spec’ed out and ordered the Mexican smalti we needed. It’s taking a bit to get into a groove, but after these last two weeks, we’re getting there! After the 4th of July week, we will be back at it hard. So far it’s quite fun, yet challenging.

We did tests with several pigments, in various percentages, to arrive at the color we wanted for our mortar, to closely match the house wall color.

A match! It took several iterations, but we settled on a 3-pigment mix to match the client’s paint swatch.

Rochelle setting the bottom left of the entry wall piece.

Lynn working from the other side of the table.

Early progress, with elements laid out for placement.

Rochelle @ DIY Cave using the drill press drilling holes in our gear. We plan to mechanically affix the largest metal components to the wall, in addition to mortaring the mosaic panels in place.

Delivery from smalti.com. Two whole blue tortillas, and the rest of our smalti and Kolorines order made us happy.

Signature tiles, engraved by Rochelle. The DIY Cave has a machine called a Glow Forge that is attached to a computer and can engrave all sorts of material.