Saving and restoring small black and white Victorian floor tiles

[Checkmygrouting]

Hi,
I have just bought a 1930's house and uncovered some small (2-3 inch square) black and white tiles. These extend partly into the kitchen, cover a small section of the hallway, and also half cover the downstairs toilet!!!...........I assume the rooms have been moved around at some point!

I am toying with saving those on the kitchen floor (I am laying a new slate floor there) and completing the toilet floor (which is half screeded). Gotta say it's not a job I am particularly looking forward to but the end result will be good. I wish I had enough tiles to complete the hall floor but that's not possible unless the tiles are still available somewhere?!?

Has anyone tried saving these tiles before and,if so, are they fairly robust and therefore easy to remove from a floor or am I in for many long painstaking evenings??

All advice gratefully received

Cheers
Andy

[Dave]

Hi andy..
You might find they are quite tightly jointed but will come up with gentleness....

Could you not take the toilet ones up as well and then you might have enough for the hallway..?

[theyomper]

In my experience, victorian tiles are bedded on a cement screed. Therefore trying to take them up without cracking them is going to be very difficult. If you want to replace the tiles them have a look at this company. I have done several jobs using these. Pete http://www.originalstyle.com/

[JEC-CTD]

Original Style's Victoriam range is worth a look. They do lots of geometric shapes in various sizes so you can match most of the old patterns quite well. They're a good hard wearing tile and the white's are whiter than a lot of white porcelain you see.

Can you give us a more accurate idea of the sizes and how thick the tiles are and I'll have a look for you.

[Checkmygrouting]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Dave,
It is a thought. I have not yet decided which way I want to go as I have a huge amount of other work going on (rewire, plumbing etc) but I know I need to do some accurate measuring before progressing.

theyomper,

the tiles are pretty tightly knit and I think you're right in that they would be laid on/in a cement base. I've checked out the webpage before.....not yet looked into their prices though!

JEC
I'm not at the house tonight but I'll check them out tomorrow, along with measuring, and let you know more info.

Cheers lads

[Dave]

Good luck and let us know which way you go.....some pics of work in progress would be good..........

[theyomper]

With Original Style I tend to work out the pattern on graph paper to scale. The last one that I did was only an area of 6 m2 but had some 1800 individual tiles to make it up. As yours sounds straight forward, a checkerboard, I don't think it will be too expensive. If memory serves me correct then a 4 in x 4 in was around about 50 pence per tile. You buy them as individual tiles so wastage is miminal.

[theyomper]

Just pulled my last invoice. Black 75 x 75 @ 39p Black 106 x 106 @ 51p. As a rule of thumb and looking at the invoice allow 50p per tile as they are all much the same. The downside is that they will charge carriage but delivery tends to be quite good. ope this helps.

[JEC-CTD]

How did you get on with this.

[frogeye]

Hi Andy

my house has a small minton entrance - and I mean small - if only they had laid the hall out I would be chuffed to bits.

I have just taken them up - they were laid on concrete, laid on shale/shingle.
Most of the tiles came up easily, but some insisted on bringing their substrate with them. I soaked them over night in soapy water and after spending 2 hours with my dremel and getting a diy version of white finger! ( painful) I used my bench grinder to clean the tiles up. Took a few hours for my small area - so be warned.

Some of the tiles that looked sound weren't and I will have to replace somehow, so allow for that.

I checked on new tiles and at £100 to £180m2 I decided to go with what I had - what ever I do it cant be much worse. But if it was a bigger area and the tiles had been more difficult to lift and clean - I would have considered new.

Will clean them tomorrow and lay on sat or Sunday

frogeye

ps - thank god for the spell checker after umpteen g&t's

[Checkmygrouting]

Sorry for the delay in replying.......not enough hours in the day what with working full time as well!

the tiles are 3inches square and approx half an inch thick.
I have been attempting to lift some of them but not all are coming out cleanly so I will try giving them a soak.
Some have been cemented over where a new floor was laid at some time so these are proving a little more problematic.

Have also checked my 'small' (read tiny) porch and found more there which appear to be in very good order so I may yet have enough


Watch this space!!

[Dave]

will be watching.. ..

Don't forget those before and after pics.....we love pics....