For my first attempt, I cut thin cork sheet into squares and glued them on. It looks bad, very haphazard. Cork is hard to cut cleanly, so none of my cuts were particularly accurate.
Second attempt, I glue the sheet to cover the tile completely and cut the squares afterwards. It didn't cut well, still looks bad. After this I gave up for a while. Brief reprise of using a multitool to cut the stuckdown cork. It worked well, cut cleanly unlike a knife, but I was unable to get the control needed to make it look natural and hit the lines well. Tried the same directly on the MDF but with the same results - not enough control to accurately get the lines in the right place
Third attempt: wood squares. They came in a pack that contained three sizes: 14mm 28mm 40mm. The 28mm worked great, perfect size. The 14mm I used in sets of four and also looked great, although they don't quite work out to be the same size as the 28mm. I should have stuck them right next to each other rather than leaving groutlines. Never used the 40mm, thought about cutting them down but never did it. The wooden squares looked great, but I'd need a lot of packets to do all my tiles. And then my local craft stores stopped selling them, so I was a bit stuck.
Fourth attempt: cardboard squares. I cut cereal box into 28mm squares and stuck them on. Looked great, but I was worried that the cardboard would curl when painted, so I sprayed a few with grey primer. It didn't. Used cardboard for the rest. Lots of variations easily possible - took forever to cut four triangles per square for my 6x5 room and glue them on - not doing that style again even for a smaller room. Easiest variation is using two rectangles since it adds very little time on but is far more interesting than just squares. I can make a lot of very accurate squares in minutes. It even looks good unpainted.
Conclusions:
Cork looks crap even if done perfectly. I don't know who suggested it, but I hate them.
PVA/Elmers glue makes it almost impossible to separate the wooden or cardboard squares from the wood without damaging the squares.
I threw all the cereal boxes into the recycling at the start of the week so I ran out of squares to finish the tiles. Now I know why my son hoards cardboard in his room. Will have to wait until someone finishes a box of cereal before finishing off.
Making the tiles double-sided will be easy. I'll do it for a few of the specialty rooms.
I had planned for all the 6x1 tiles to be possible to combine into a single large room of whatever size I needed, but I screwed that up a bit by using the cork and wooden squares on some of them, so not all of them match.
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