Flooring the Kitchen in Victorian Style

Introduction

As the year is approaching its end, the time has come to change your surroundings in preparations for the New Year. While our lifestyle is modernizing at a rapid pace, many of us still long to disconnect from it and re-experience the glorious past of our ancestors. This time our focus is on renovating the kitchen with Victorian patterned tiles. This will give the place an aristocratic feeling, making a part of the house resemble a royal kitchen of 1800’s Victorian era.

Pre-Planning

Before starting any physical work, it is essential to plan every move.

Existing Kitchen Items – Before doing any research, it is important to look at all the appliances and accessories present in the kitchen. All the dysfunctional ones should be discarded so as to save space. When looking for a perfect finish, the color, size, and orientation of each appliance must be taken into account in the kitchen.

Self-Research - Now it’s time to research and more into the design, color, and type of Victorian tiles and choose some options. One can also check for the availability of the chosen options in their neighborhood. Due to the immense popularity of the online platform, even local shops have their own websites or at least some description for consumers these days.

Expert Advice – Since the entire kitchen is supposed to get a makeover, it is advisable to hire skilled and professional craftsmen rather than doing a solo job. These people can inspect and calculate the materials required and the cost incurred. Since the Victorian tiles have patterns, only experienced tilers can set them precisely and uniformly.

Installation

Setting down Victorian tiles is quite different from tiling a normal floor and each step of the installation has to be done carefully.

Extra Materials – It is advised to buy extra Victorian tiles and other essential ingredients. Many times, even while being careful, some mistakes do occur. Either the tiles get broken while handling, they do not fit on the spot perfectly or even the grout may get dried up and wasted.

Cleaning - The floor is cleaned and left to dry. A coat of neat primer and leveler powder is mixed into a thick liquid/paste. It is then applied over the whole floor. This coat becomes the main component for the leveling compound to be put over its top.

Leveling - We now apply a fiber reinforced leveling compound over the entire surface of the floor. All the doorways and holes are blocked to stop the liquid leveling compound from escaping out. Drying may take a few hours as per the room temperature.

Calculations before Tiling - After the leveler has dried, the primer is diluted. It is then applied and allowed to dry off. After drying, the tiler must calculate and plan as to where the tiles will be placed. This, in turn, determines the exact starting point for the tiling.

Main Pattern - The main pattern is laid down at the beginning while making sure that all lines remain straight and all the tile angles created around the room are accurate. This task requires a lot of patience as the tiler has to deal with a lot of differently colored and shaped tiles. Especially when creating intricate designs, a lot of time is spent.

Border Work - After the main pattern is completed, the tiler lays down the border around the edges. This process also requires to check whether all lines are straight and all angles of the pattern are correct.

Filling Gaps - The border area is now completed with a plain fill. After applying, the extra fill is cut down around the edges accordingly. The width of the fill may be wider or narrower so as to accommodate the pattern and border. This, in turn, will enable the pattern to be finished at the right points.

Finishing Touches – After the tiling is finished, the floor must be cleaned thoroughly and then it must be left to dry. After drying, a coat of sealer is applied to all the tiles. After applying, this acts as an impregnating sealer which gets soaked into the tiles, filling the pores and helping to protect the tiles from getting stained.

Once the sealer gets dried, the floor must be grouted using a cement grey grout. This grouted floor is then allowed to dry and after that, the floor is thoroughly cleaned again. After the grouted and cleaned floor has dried, the second layer of sealer should again be applied all over the floor. At this stage, the tiler does the finishing jobs like fitting threshold trims in doorways, shaving the bottoms of doors and rehanging the doors as well as cleaning up.

Essential Tips

While working with Victorian tiles, these sets of tips must be kept in mind.

1. Victorian tiles work best when having a narrow grout gap of 1.5mm-2mm wide.

2. The concrete slabs to which the tiles are glued must be at least 150mm thick, be perfectly level, and with square edges.

3. The design must be first planned on the ground or on a piece of paper so that the color combinations and the pattern can be known. For expensive, massive and exquisite designs for the floor, there are CAD design packages available on the internet which can accurately determine the finished look of the design and the number of tiles required.

4. This is not a DIY or a solo homemade job and must be taken seriously. A little mistake may get exaggerated further down the row of tiles and the final Victorian kitchen floor may have a disastrous and completely skewed pattern.

5. If there are holes in the floor (for pipes, wires, sink), they must be covered perfectly while layering the tiles. This allows the tiles to sit perfectly even after the covers are removed. The exposed edges of the tiles must be polished.

Conclusion

Many people may hesitate to completely renovate by breaking down walls and changing the entire layout of the kitchen. This manual allows these people to change the look of the kitchen by concentrating mainly on tiling the floor with Victorian tiles. As stated earlier, when done perfectly, the final floor changes the entire look and atmosphere of the kitchen giving a surprise to anyone visiting the house during Christmas or for New Year celebration.