On many if not all crazy hardwood floors, plan on using real wood. Don't try using anything that uses a tongue-in-groove. Also do a total glue down with a good commercial glue available at any flooring supply store. Your local flooring/carpet guy may be able to tell you where to get it. The good stuff is about $80 for 2 1/2 gallons and you will use a lot of it.
In the photographs of the @#&$*&! wood floor that I did you will notice that every stinkin' board had to be a very precise cut. Then I had to make my own t&g to have the whole thing locked together on an underlayment. Labor intensive? Can you say understatement? A glue down is way better. Now that I have saved you from a giant time consuming mistake that I made, you may send donations to...
A few quick notes:
1) When using real wood, after it is installed sand down with a floor sander and finish with a minimum of two coats of semi-gloss poly-urethane for floors.
2) When mixing wood and tile, don't hit the tile/stone with the sander or the poly-urethane...
3) Marble can be fun, it is afterall a stone that can be cut, shaped and polished with a tile saw and an angle grinder or sander!
4) On complex patterns, do your math!!
5) Take your time, do it right.
Tile? Wood? Marble? Why not all of the above on the same floor (just be sure it's all the same thickness)? Here are a few drawings and pictures to get the gray matter in your skull to start pondering. Note, if your wife sees this and out of the blue you get a new "hobby", at least when you are done you will have a truly one of a kind floor. When the first thing out of the mouths of everybody who comes over is, "Wow!! Who did your floor?", that my friends is real satisfaction!
(tile floor installed by James Loveless of Smart Floors in Phelan, California)
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