Easy Inexpensive Flooring: For years, I've used the very thin balsa wood, I think about 1/32" thick. A strip 3" wide and about 36" long runs $1 to $1.25 depending on where you buy it. Score it with a pen or pencil, according to the type flooring you want (fine, narrow evenly spaced strips for a "nice" room or wider, more random strips for a more casual or rustic look.) Then, since balsa doesn't like stain much, I use paste shoe polish. Just rub it on, no drying needed. Tan polish gives sort of a blonde oak look, which I don't care for, but a light coat of brown is more of a golden oak ... add a little more and it's more of a maple-ish tone. Oxblood -- who knows? You can then lightly sand it for your traffic areas, or put a high gloss on it AFTER it's glued down and dried. This is CHEAP and easy -- I just did both levels of a small Greenleaf kit for under $3. Mail me privately, and I'll try to send you a picture of the finished floor.

Paula Isaacs

Easy Inexpensive Flooring:

A. If your house is made of wood, you may score the floor with an X-acto knife. This is the least expensive way to make a wood floor.

1. Mark your board pattern with a pencil. I prefer to use a small metal ruler with a cork back. It does not slip when I press on it.

2. One of the blades in the X-acto woodcarving set is a very small v-shaped chisel. Gently push the blade down the ruler away from your hand(to protect against cuts.) You do not want to go too deep, just get a good score.

3. Smooth the floor with OOOO steel wool, using a tacky rag to remove any particles of sawdust.

4. Apply the color stain of your choice.




B. You may use one of the wood grained papers, such as the original ones by J. Hermes. Apply like wallpaper, but seal.



C. I have laid numerous floors with wooden coffee stirrers purchased at a restaurant supply store.
Becky Holliday

Easy Inexpensive Flooring: I made my hardwood floors for free - I used the luan veneer from an old hollow door (finished plywood scrap can also provide a source). The veneer will separate if the wood gets wet and it can then be dried and cut into strips. I had some veneer warp/wrinkle when I tried to paint it, but the flooring strips I glued down are great. I went for an aged wood effect so I darkened it with lampblack rubbed into the wood grain and plank ends. I sealed it with MinWax and am very pleased with the result

Jacqui Martin

Easy Inexpensive Flooring: Go to the printable sites listed on the SmallStuff home page and look for printable wood flooring. You can print them out, seal them with acrylic sealer, glue to your floor and put on a couple coats of varnish or whatever. Very inexpensive.

Carole Pierce in TN

Easy Inexpensive Flooring: You can get wallpaper with the design of wooden floors.I have used them covered with a coat or two of modge podge. I have also used real wood and think the paper ones look as real or maybe even more realistic because the thickness of the paper is more "in scale".

Harriett - Framingham, MA

Easy Inexpensive Flooring: All you need is a thin, flat piece of wood that you can score lines in to duplicate boards. Then you stain in whatever 'wood' color you want, and finish. Looks like the real thing.

Kaye in L.A.

. I would approach it this way; I cannot apply a full size strip of paper as it will "dog ear" at the top and bottom of the walls. I would cut the paper into strips and apply each strip matching any design as you would with real life size paper hanging. By using strips you avoid the "bunching" at the top and bottom of the walls.

Dr Bob

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: I have to get in on the conversation about papering the inside of a teapot. I have actually done it. In fact, I taught a workshop where we did just that.

Now I'm not saying this is the "right" way but here is what I did. In my case, Mrs. Potts had previously been a bank and her "inside" had various cavities from the form that needed to be hidden.

I made a template out of poster board (shirt board). I cut slits down from the top and up from the bottom and pushed that into the hole. Then I marked the overlaps, pulled it out of the teapot and cut out the V's so there were not extra bulges. I refit to make sure I liked the new "interior" wall. The I pulled it out an applied paper to this. (I actually used a flowery pattern and it didn't look bad.) I then trimmed out some, not all of the paper that went over those V's that I cut out.-- I left a little to hide the seams. --I shoved it back in the pot and pasted down the thin little edges.

Shannon Moore

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: Why not just use strips or squares of patterned tissue paper or paper napkins and decoupage them on the teapot walls. The paper is thin and more forgiving than the thicker true wallpaper and would allow you to follow the curves better. It won't be an even, neat lining up like true wallpaper and you will still have wrinkles, but they will be less obvious and it will add some color and a semblance of wallpaper.

Parisa

1/4 Scale Teapot Walls: Suggest prepainting and then apply whimsical decals? Model railroad stores and a few mini shops have a solvent that makes decals more flexible than usual so they may conform to the interesting back shape. If you build false walls, don't loose the in-between space entirely. Paint and "plant" a backdrop on the pot wall and include a window or two in your false wall. Plan ahead so windows align with point of greatest "exterior" depth.

Mel in Vegas