Carpet Covered Victorian Tiled Hallway Resurrected in Crouch End N8

Its not often I get to see an old floor before the carpet is removed but this Victorian Tiled Floor at a property in Crouch End was still completely covered. The customer was going to replace the carpet but having realised there was an original period floor underneath they called me in to have a look.

The carpet had been secured to hardboard which in turn had been glued onto the tiles underneath, this will have helped protect it but made it impossible for me to assess the condition of the floor and provide an accurate quote for its restoration. I gave a price to remove the carpet and the hardboard and provided an estimate of what restoration would cost once we could see its condition.

The customer was keen to get the floor restored so agreed to have me start by removing the hardboard and we would take it from there.

Restoring a Victorian Tiled Hallway Floor

I returned on a mutually convenient date and used a combination of hammers chisels and scrappers to careful remove the board without doing any damage the floor. Once removed we found most of the floor was intact although it was very dirty and covered in a thick layer of glue. Additionally, one section of the floor was missing and had been back filled with concrete.

Now that I was able to see the full condition of the tiles, I was able to provide a detailed quote in line with the rates I previously given. This included the repairs, removing the glue, deep cleaning the tiles and finally sealing the tiles to protect them going forward. Happy with the price, I was given the go ahead to complete the restoration.

To remove the glue a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Remove & Go was applied to the floor and left to soak in for fifteen minutes before work started on carefully scrapping excess glue off the surface of the tiles. This was then followed up with a black scrubbing pad and remove the remainder. The soiling was rinsed off and extracted with a wet vacuum.

To further clean up the floor a coarse 50-grit pad was worked into the tiles using water for lubrication, the soiling was extracted and the process repeated with finer 100 and 200 grit pads.

Next step was to repair the missing section of floor that had been backfilled with concrete. This had to be carefully chipped out and the sub floor rebuilt with self-levelling compound. For the tiling I was unable to find matching replacements in the original imperial size so instead I bought reproduction tiles in a larger metric size in the colours needed. These were then cut down to size to build the required pattern, dry fitted and only once I was happy secured in place with rapid set adhesive and grout.

Once all the tiling was done the last step was to give the whole floor a light wash with Tile Doctor Grout Clean-Up to remove grout smears and further clean up the tiles. After a final rinse and extraction with the wet vacuum the floor was ready for the final step of sealing.

Sealing a Victorian Tiled Hallway Floor

To seal the floor Tile Doctor X-Tra Seal was applied which is a fully breathable oil-based impregnator than soaks into the pores of the tile adding protection from within. Old floors like this don’t have a damp proof membrane so it’s important to use a breathable sealer and X-Tra Seal is rated for external use so ideal for a hallway.

In total the job took 4 days with a great result that completely restored the beauty of the floor which really stood out and made for a very appealing entrance that has no doubt added value to property.

For the aftercare of Victorian tiled floors, I recommended the use of Tile Doctor Neutral Tile Cleaner which due to its neutral ph makes it idea for the regular cleaning of sealed tiles. Many of the products you will find in supermarkets are simply too strong and will prematurely erode the sealer on a tile and so best avoided.

 

Professional Restoration of a Victorian Tiled Hallway in North London