Farm-stand Project- the greenhouse floor

One of the things that for some reason took me an awful lot of time was to decide how I wanted to finish the floor in the greenhouse area of the farm-stand. I haven't decided for sure what will be sold out there, I know I will be probably be putting some kind of plants out there but not sure what yet.

Anyway it has been many years since I have been inside a greenhouse so I looked online at several different options. The one I found that I liked the best was made up of concrete slabs with moss growing between. It was so pretty in the picture that I decided that was what had to be in this greenhouse. So concrete slabs are easy, egg cartons are the perfect material and I decided to leave the color alone. I also love the fact that this is a free craft material. So I got out a stack of egg carton lids that I have been saving. You can see from the picture I have a few, and started cutting 1” squares. 

 

When I had enough squares to cover the floor I spread a thin layer of tacky glue on my primed floor piece. I had primed the floor piece ahead of time with gray primer so it would be ready when I needed it. I actually got two floor pieces in the kit so both are primed. I then placed the squares of “concrete” in place. I didn't mark out a grid or anything because I want this to be a floor that is just laid out on a sand base so they could have shifted a bit over time.

When the squares were in place I spread some blended turf that I got at a local model railroad store over everything. 

 

Because I have had so much of this kit that was warped when I unpacked it I decided I had better clamp the floor while the glue dried. I used some clothes pins and simply clamped it together with the other floor piece. This will do 2 things. First it will make sure the squares lay flat and it will also encourage the floor to stay flat. Since the glue is covered with a pretty heavy coat of “moss” I'm not too worried about the two pieces sticking together but I will un-clamped them before the glue dried all the way.

The next step was to carefully cut any overhanging squares away from the edges and give a top coat of Mod Podge to seal everything. I used the Matt finish variety so it will seal without giving a lot of shine.

Then when the Mod Podge was dry I decided that there needed to be a lot more “moss” between the concrete slabs, So time for plan B, I used my tacky glue to fill all the spaces between the slabs. Then I went through with a toothpick to even out these lines a bit and to make sure they were down into the the spaces.
 

Then I remembered to set the floor on a piece of paper so I could save the extra moss. I then spread a nice thick layer of moss over the floor and used my hand to pack it down just a bit. I let this dry for about a half hour then dumped the excess moss onto the paper under the floor. I then put this excess back in the bag.

Now the floor just needs to dry overnight then I can start assembling the greenhouse.