For the Living Room and Hallway flooring I’m using the tile that looks the most like real wood. Like the last prep I used a box cutter to make cuts in the vinyl tile and broke them to create planks. I’ve found the box cutter to be much better at cutting the vinyl tile than the exact-o knife. This tile was SO much thinner and much easier to work with.
This tile had a parquet style so I started by cutting the tile from the original pattern into smaller tiles using this as a template.
This time instead of measuring on each side of the tile I utilized the cutting mat I purchased from Michael’s. This mat has a ruler at the top and bottom. So I would line the larger planks up with the lines on the board and use the metal ruler to guide the box cutter into straight lines, then break the tile to create the smaller planks. That sounds confusing I think but in the picture you can see the yellow lines on the mat, those are the ones I’m talking about. They’re inch lines but I cut the boards to be a 1/2 inch wide which meant lining the ruler I was using, to keep the cuts straight, with the ruler inch lines at the top and bottom of the cutting mat.
Before laying the tiles into the house I sanded the sides so they would be straight. I wish I had done this with the tiles I used for the bedroom.
Miniature Moments 