After going round in circles for while figuring out how to make a realistic-looking treehouse floor, I finally stumbled on something that seems to be working.
For something to work for me, it needs to be:
- Easy
- Cheap
- Realistic-looking
I’d dismissed the stick-on parquet tiles, because I doubted the girls would install parquet floors in the treehouse, but once I found a grey, weathered parquet floor, I realized I could change it into weathered boards with a few snips.
Here’s part of a vinyl parquet floor tile I picked up at Home Depot for $0.89.
It doesn’t look right in scale as it is, but you can easily cut along the lines using pruning shears (my cutting tool of choice).
And then clean up along the edges using a utility blade.
And then lay out the individual pieces on a solid piece of wood.
And it looks like some old planks of weathered wood that the girls might have found.
Here’s Olive working on laying out the floor.
And here she is relaxing (in a way cool $10 chair from WalMart on top of a $1 placemat from Goodwill)
Covering the whole 21 x 21″ piece took four pieces of parquet flooring, so about $4 altogether.
For 1/6 scale dolls, I recommend the vinyl oak parquet flooring tiles. Here’s one in red oak next to the tile I used:
The wood pieces are much smaller, and the less weathered look is more appropriate for indoor flooring.
I’m really happy with my solution, and I think I’ll start using the 1/6 scale flooring to create some of my second draft rooms for the Mia Fiorello girls.