Better to Test Early ...

Sally will live outside for the summer at the zoo. It's important she lasts and that her beautiful "fur" does not "fall out". A naked Sally would be a sad Sally.

Early on, we decided to test our materials. We chose DAP silicone caulk for the adhesive in place of traditional thinset. We did research, and we learned this silicone would best handle the freeze/thaw component linked to our beloved Wisconsin winters. We adhered a few pieces of glass onto a board, and we threw it into the freezer. When we took it out a day later, and it "thawed", all glass pieces still remained on the board. None popped off. This was a huge relief. We threw this back into the freezer and brought it back out a few more times, just to test our fake freeze/thaw.

We also wanted to sample grout to see if we like the color of our grout. We pondered colors, and we have darker spots with lighter glass between. We chose a light, sand-colored grout because it unified the glass between the spots. We did consider grouting the spots with a darker color and the space between the spots a lighter color, but we decided that it would be too difficult to keep the lines between the light and dark grout clean and crisp. Light grout won.

Below is our sample board. It's hard to image Sally complete right now, but this gives a good idea what she'll look like.

Lessons Learned
1. We were smart to test our materials early. It would be very unfortunate to learn our silicone caulk didn't work like it claimed after we spend hours and hours adhering thousands of pieces of glass to Sally.

2. We have to keep in mind that Sally could live outside or inside, and it's best to prepare her for as many scenarios as we possibly can so that she can be a happy, healthy giraffe.