by Gary Lord
cause it would provide an be glued down to the concrete sub-
The beauty of a stained wood marquetry floor at a frac-
tion of the costthats what Gary Lord achieved for his
business entry area. (Photo by Robin Victor Goetz/RVGP Inc.)
rom more than 30 years, I
F ran my office for two busi-
nessesGary Lord Wall Op-
tions and Prismatic Painting Stu-
dioout of my home. About seven
years ago, I opened up a school and
warehouse location for the two com-
bined companies, but kept the office
in my home. I loved having my of-
fice at home, because it afforded me
the opportunity to work whenever I
wanted and, when the kids were
younger, to be around if they needed
me. However, both companies kept
growing, and it eventually became
too inconvenient to have two sepa-
rate locations. It was a hard decision
to move out of my home and com-
bine the locations together, but it was
the right one.
The move allowed me to build out
and decorate my new space any way I
wanted. I especially wanted my entry
area to have a big WOW factor, be-
52 SPRING2OO6 TheFAUXFinisher
important first impression
for both my contract clients
and my school/distributor-
ship. Wall Options had just
won rave reviews for creat-
ing a beautiful stained mar-
quetry floor using Model-
los in a home show. The
builder and the hardwood
flooring contractor both
told me that we saved more
How-to Project:
A Floor to
Remember
than $45,000 by staining
the pattern versus doing it
in real wood marquetry.
I knew this was a look that I
would be using a lot in the future. It
would be a big plus for my high-end
builders and also provide a substan-
tial savings for any future clients.
The wood marquetry floor would al-
low Wall Options to offer a unique
design at a good profit margin, so ul-
timately it was a win-win for every-
body. For Prismatic Painting Studio,
teaching my students how to create
a stained floor using the Modellos
would allow them to make substan-
tial money and also benefit their end
usersonce again a winning situa-
tion for everyone involved. So, I
made the decision to feature a stained
marquetry floor in my new entryway.
My floor originally had carpet on
it, so I hired the same flooring con-
tractor from the home show to remove
the carpet and install tongue-and-
groove hardwood flooring that could
strate. The next step was to design the
pattern that I wanted for the floor. I
sought input from my staff. We went
through Modellos wonderful design
catalog and selected a pattern we all
thought would have that WOW factor
we were going after. I then contacted
Modello Designs and told them the
exact dimensions of my room and
which pattern we would like on the
floor. For a small fee, they e-mailed
the selected design, which was scaled
perfectly to the size that I needed. This
allowed my staff and me to approve
the final scale before it went into pro-
duction. I always do this for my
clients as well. We made a few minor
adjustments to the designs, and once
we saw the revised design, we accept-
ed it and placed the order. I had a tight
timeframe, since I wanted to complete
the work during the week I was off be-
tween Christmas and the New Year.
However, Modello Designs always
has been wonderful about getting my
designs to me when I needed them,
and this time was no exception.
The flooring contractor laid the
floor in one day, and then came back
and sanded it smooth and cleaned it
off the next day. (See Photo 1.) My
floor size was 15 feet, 6 inches by 10
feet, 4 inches. I told Modello I would
like the final floor design to be 10 feet
by 15 feet. The reason I did this was
we were going to install a baseboard
that would take up 1 1/2 inches off of
the total room measurement in both
directions. The other extra space I
could use if my room and floor were
out of square. I could also use that ex-
tra space to allow my pattern to be
square even if my room was not. The
pattern we selected was so large that
it came in 14 different pieces and fit
together like a big puzzle. The nice
thing is that Modello provides a dia-
gram showing how all the puzzle
pieces fit together, and each piece is
labeled so you know how they all fit.
The front and the back of the Model-
los are clearly marked, so you know
which side to adhere to your surface
first.
Before you do that, you need to
burnish down the Modello with a
plastic braying tool they send with the
pattern. My son, Ben, and I used a car-
penters square and a chalk box and
snapped an outline of our 10-by-15-
foot pattern onto the floor as our
guide. Once that was done, we re-
leased the backing paper from one
half of the number one Modello. Care-
fully we lined up the Modello in the
air above our chalk guideline and then
lowered it into the correct space, all
the while keeping the Modello
straight and smooth. We then used the
braying tool and pressed down firmly
onto the Modello, working from the
center out and making sure that no
bubbles or creases appeared as we
smoothed out the design. This process
ensures the sticky side of the Model-
lo to adhere to the floor. Next, we
folded back the design 180 degrees
onto itself so we could remove the
backing paper. We then carefully laid
the design back down and smoothed
it out with the plastic braying tool
again (Photo 2). A closeup can be
seen of the first Modello installed
with the transfer facing paper still on
it (Photo 3).
When removing the transfer paper,
you need to be careful and watch your
transfer papers leading edge to ensure
that none of the Modello lifts up from
the floor and stays on the face of the
transfer paper. If this happens, just lay
the design back down and press hard
again with the braying tool and then
lift off the transfer paper. Photo 4
shows some of the floor installed with
part of the transfer paper still on and
other sections with it removed. The 1
system of installation remains the
same for each section, but as you get
into more areas you need to make sure
that the puzzle pieces fit perfectly
on all touching sides (Photo 5). This
takes patience and attention to detail,
because the Modellos cannot be ad-
justed once they stick to the floor. Al-
so, when installing big pieces, make 2
sure that the Modello does not stick to
itself because that is extremely hard to
fix. Mistakes do happen, and they are
fixable with time, but do your best to
avoid them.
For the areas where the pattern
did not match perfectly because of
human error, we corrected them with
green tape put onto the floor and cut 3
to fit the pattern. In the bottom right-
hand corner of Photo 6, you will see
a small vertical space where the de-
sign did not match up and we need-
ed to fix it with tape, as can been
seen in Photo 7. For larger areas that
stuck together in installation, we
were able to use some salvage pieces 4
of exact parts that were missing and
piece them into the damaged areas.
For one section, we had to use clear
contact paper and trace the design
onto it, then install it where it be-
longed and cut the appropriate areas
out with an exacto knife.
After the design was installed, all
transfer tape removed and all areas 5
corrected we stained the floor the first
color. We used Aqua Finishing Solu-
tions Stain and Seal in the color
Ebony. The Stain and Seal is a water-
based gel stain. Its important to use
this type of stain, because a penetrat-
ing stain or a stain that is too thin will
bleed under the Modello and you will
never get a clean design image. We 6
SPRING2OO6 TheFAUXFinisher 53
 applied the Stain and Seal with
a lambskin staining pad fol-
lowing the natural grain in the
wood and then immediately
wiped it off following the
grain as well (Photo 8). We al-
lowed this to dry overnight
7
and then removed the Model-
lo pattern only in the center of
the squares (9). We left the
other vertical and horizontal
Modello pattern on the floor
because we were still using it
as a shield to keep our next
color of stain only in the
squares (Photo 10). We also
8 added 2-inch green tape
around all of these areas to
help ensure we did not stain
into the wrong section. We
then used Stain and Seal once A closeup of the final result. (Photo by Robin Victor
again to stain the inside of the Goetz/RVGP Inc.)
squares, but we changed the color and we had the WOW factor we wanted.
used Antique Mahogany (Photo 11). The last step was to protect the
We once again removed all of the finish. We applied one coat of a wa-
9 tape and all of the Modello pattern at ter-based polyurethane called Aqua-
this point as well. Next we taped out guard Gloss to the floor using our
the squares we had completed to pro- lambskin pads again, following the
tect them so we could stain the vertical grain in the wood. We allowed this to
and horizontal elements with Stain and dry over the weekend, and then came
Seals color Rich Brown (Photo 12). back the next week and lightly sand-
At this point, the floor was totally ed the floor with 220-grit and tacked
stained, but we felt it needed a bigger it off before applying our final coat.
WOW factor to it. Joe Taylor of my We used another water-based sealer
10
staff hand-cut two stencils to match called C-500 in a high-gloss sheen. I
the larger and smaller star bursts in wanted to protect my floor the best I
the floor design. He then stenciled could, and this is the most durable
through them use Aqua Finishing So- and hardest sealer I know. (Photo
lutions Imprint Coat for our gold size. above shows the final result.)
Once this tacked up, within minutes, Using Modellos are a wonderful
Joe and another staff member, Jeff way to enhance many areas from
Sutherland, transferred 22-K gold leaf ceilings to floors. This is just one of
11 in all of these areas (Photos 13). Now many ways to be creative with them
and be a win for you as the installer
and a win for the client in design and
cost savings as well. TFF
Gary Lords two businesses, Prismatic
Painting and Gary Lord Wall Options, are lo-
cated in Cincinnati, Ohio. Visit his Web site
at www.prismaticpainting.com. Or contact
him via e-mail, e-mail info@prismatic
painting.com, phone (513) 931-5520 or fax
12 13 (513) 931-5545.

54 SPRING2OO6 TheFAUXFinisher