Terra cotta floor: about time......

After renovating the mill room 18 months ago, we did the majority of the flooring with reclaimed terra cotta tiles but had stopped short of finishing the room and had been living with some wooden boards temporarily covering the soil and sand underneath. The hall, cloakroom, bathroom and kitchen were also waiting to be tiled.

Bee took the kids back to see Great Granny for a week so Al stayed back to try to progress with the task.  

The first section was laying the tiles on a bed of damp sand and lime.  The tiles are soaked for 24 hours before laying on the mix and then tapped in with a mallet. This is the traditional method used in this area for centuries. 

Then the hallway was done by gluing the tiles with modern high performance tile glue and a space was left for a built in door mat.

The glueing method is a little quicker but still very slow as each tile is irregular and needs to be measured, cleaned and laid in batches by width.  

The bathroom is nearing completion and once the kitchen is finished, we will grout the while lot with a fine sand and lime mortar and then apply several layers of warm linseed oil and terebenthine.  Big job but it already transforms the place.