New Kitchen Floor

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Jonathan_T

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As the title suggests we're going to have a new kitchen floor put in our house. Problem is that we'd both like to replace the existing red & black quarry tiles with a much lighter stone floor but we're scared the stone floor will mark up too easily and not be easy to clean.

To set the scene the house is an old farmhouse in rural derbyshire, we have loads of quarries around us so getting stone is no issue. The new floor needs to fit in with the existing "traditional" farmhouse look

Does anyone on here have experience of stone flooring, how does it cope with grease being spilt on it? does it mark up easily? (we do a lot of walking so tend to plod about the kitchen in walking boots). Any other gotcha's we should know about when it comes to stone flooring?

I look forward to the forums collective knowledge stopping me from making and expensive mistake or an excellent choice!
 
We have travertine...lovely...easy to keep.

Are you lifting the red and black? I presume if you are you will be putting down a new floor underneath the stone finish...those old floors were very often laid on to clay.
 
You can get some good liquid sealants these days for your stone floor, they'll prevent grease or oil from penetrating without making them look all shiny and horrid. We have slate floors and they are sealed with something we got from 'Fired Earth'. I find it best to re-apply the coating every 2 or 3 years. :)
 
Yep, Red & Blacks coming up and floor dug down about 8 inches, new waterprrof membrane laid and then concete going down.

it's a big job so keen to ensure the "right" flooring is laid at the end :thumb:
 
If you are using Derbyshire stone then it will be relatively soft as there are no hard rock quarries in the area that I know of that produce stone suitable for flooring. As such the stone will be soft and very difficult to clean, grease etc goes in looks messy and you can't get it out. also the stone wears quite easy and with it creates a lot of dust. What you need to do is seal the stone floor once laid with an acrylic sealer you can get these in various hardnesses from one that put on a light coating to one that looks like a glass coating is very easy to clean and stain resistant. I looked at doing this as when some of the Derbyshire limestones are cut they take on a nice pink sheen which looks really good. Eventually SWMBO decreed kitchen was going to be black and white so floor ended up being grey Welsh slate sealed with Acrylic.

Hope that helps and if you need any further help I have loads of contacts in the quarry Industry
 
Yep, Red & Blacks coming up and floor dug down about 8 inches, new waterprrof membrane laid and then concete going down.

it's a big job so keen to ensure the "right" flooring is laid at the end :thumb:

As CF has said, you will be sealing the new floor, so choose what you like, because upkeep should not be a problem. I would imagine you will have to dig a little further down than 8", since you will have hardcore, insulation (the deeper the better) concrete, and finally screed. We dug down 18": The grey pipe on the left sits on the new floor.
 

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Jeez have you had riots there too
 

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Thanks all for the replies. Am awaiting some travertine and limestone samples which I'll seal and then test to see if they stain. :)
 
Lay the new stone floor, seal it thoroughly, then point/grout, let it dry then seal it all again.

Plenty of specialist products here:-

Extensive, the UKs leading online supplier of Lithofin products

You can't go wrong with Lithofin, it's what the trade tends to use.

Make sure any stone you seal with Lithofin is COMPLETELY dried out before you treat it. Had a job a couple of years ago where a stone supplier offered an architect a great deal on some large format Pietra Serena [a dark grey limestone]. The stone had been stored outisde in his yard so had been soaked through several times.

Anyway stone laid, prepared and sealed as per Lithofin instructions, and floor protected until handover. We lifted the protection just to final clean the job and the floor was horribly stained throughout. In the end the whole floor relaid. Worse still the problem repeated itself second time round even though we pursuaded the architect to supervise the works with us. Only cause we could identify was Lithofin sealing moisture into the stone, but the result looked awful.

So one floor, laid three times. The client - a lawyer's office, so you can imagine how much fun that was to sort out!
 
To start you own?
43.gif

Will you p1ss off...please.
 
You should also add insulation into the new floor construction - use celotex or similar laid under the concrete or between concrete & screed, with an upstand at the edges.
 
#also Derbyshire old farmhouse thingy.#

I couldn't find anything I liked from the quarries (to soft, too yellow, or too fossilly, and too expensive) and ended up using Indian stone.
I used Danish oil to seal it.
I treated the stone before it was even laid.
It worked.
 
#also Derbyshire old farmhouse thingy.#

I couldn't find anything I liked from the quarries (to soft, too yellow, or too fossilly, and too expensive) and ended up using Indian stone.
I used Danish oil to seal it.
I treated the stone before it was even laid.
It worked.

SWMBO was sold on some Italian stone tiles then changed her mind and decided she wanted "local" stone :doh:

Thanks again all for your input :thumb:
 

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