Looking for advice on a special ceramic project

Ceramics
#1

Evening good ceramics members!

So my wife and I are in the process of purchasing our first house and it’s got a very interesting situation. Upon entering the house, the first thing you see is a TREE!

Yes, you read that correctly, there’s a tree planted inside the house. (See attached pictures)

Unfortunately one of the requirements of our mortgage company is going to necessitate the removal of the tree and the filling in of the foundation where it is.

This is where I need help. My wife and I are planning on tiling in the spot, but want to leave a momento to this amazing plant that has likely been in the house for decades. So we want to have either a large painted, or mosaic tree of life in the center of the flooring where the tree was planted.

Looking at a 30/39in mosaic tree tile on Amazon was $900, which is well and away out of our budget. So we’re looking for other options to make this memorial piece.

If anyone has any advice, or could help teach me how to create a tile or mosaic like that, I would be eternally grateful.

I thank you all in advance for your suggestions!

Luke Jordan-Holdar

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#2

That is too bad as that is pretty cool.

1 Like
#3

That is very cool and sad it has to go, I can see why you want to do something to pay homage. I think between measuring out the space, choosing the clay, doing the math to account for clay shrinkage, designing the mosaic, and then the time it would take to do it all, first fire, second fire, install, you’d be looking at well over $900 in time and materials for someone to custom do it. But! You might get lucky so it’s always worth it to post and see. If it doesn’t work out for you that way, you can always come over to ceramics to DIY, we don’t have classes on it but you can take the ceramic 100 and figure it out vía YouTube and asking around in case someone does have experience in this type of thing. Best of luck and congratulations on your beautiful new home!

#4

This is very likely well over your budget, but…

  • dig out the tree for transplant
  • dig out additional soil in the existing hole
  • line the hole with concrete as if it was a miniature basement, whatever your local codes allow
  • put the tree back in the hole, either with the original dirt or within a separate container depending on what is allowed by code
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