I spend a lot of time in Muswell Hill and Crouch end. It seams they are never going to run out of original Victorian tiled hallways that customers find under old carpets :). There are some nice colourful geometric style Victorian tessellated tiles in these areas , also nice Victorian tiles in Barnet, Potters bar. Basically I cover all of North and North West London so please do get in touch. I have included some info below on my restoration process for these old tiles
How are these original Victorian tiles restored?
I prefer the more quality long version to restore these old tiles. Some of my competitors do restorations pretty quick but I always find that I get issues if the work isn’t spread out enough to allow each stage to dry and cure properly. I now have a fine tuned Victorian tile restoration recipe that gives the best quality results in term of aesthetic appeal and longevity. I only use natural blends of waxes to finish them as these breath and dont get discoloured like the newer polymer modified waxes do. Its also easy to maintain natural waxes and they protect these tiles well. I guess all the natural wax the Victorians used to apply to them back in the day allows us to restore them so beautifully now!
The restoration process I use for Victorian tiles
Generally if there are not extensive repair works required I prefer a thorough deep clean to begin the restoration. This is a detailed hands and knees ” laser in on every square inch of tile” approach that takes usually between 1-2 days. I get these old Victorian tiles very very clean and during this cleaning stage the customer and I decide on repairs they would like me to do. We can then order the right tiles and with clean tiles we can properly assess the colours for the new tiles to be ordered. Continued below …
Deep sealing your Victorian tiles
The amount of stuff that comes out of these porous tiles always amazes me. They hold allot of old waxes and oils, dirt etc. They become very spongy and can easily stain once properly deep cleaned. They also look pretty flat and dull after the clean , see the tiles below in the pic which are clean (on left) and then get colour enhanced (on right). It is therefore very important that they be deep sealed properly ASAP after the deep cleaning stage. This usually is the next morning when the tiles are properly dry. The tile sealer I prefer is a colour enhancing oil based durable penetrating sealer that protects from staining but also makes the colours jump out again. After the sealing which doesn’t take that long customers just need to walk in socks on the tiles while the sealer cures. Continued below…
Tile repairs to your original Victorian tiles
A few days after the tiles order the tiles will usually arrive and then the tiling repairs can start. This can only be minimum of 24 hours after the deep sealing so that it is cured properly for the repair work to commence. If there are extensive repairs required then its best to clean and seal the tiles at the end after the repairs so that we dont ruin our clean floor. Doing the cleaning and sealing first, followed by repairs only works when there is about a day or two of light repairs spread throughout the floor type thing.
Dont use the builder: The repairs to these old tiles need to be done with absolute patience and there is a real skill involved in doing these well. Customers are always getting their builder to repair their Victorian hallway and pathway tiles and pretty much every time its 60-70% at best. The tiles are always wonky, uneven and builders do allot of damage to surrounding tiles, especially plumbers and gas fitters.
In fact there are very few that can do a good job at repairing these old Victorian tiles. Standard tilers seem to mess them up allot too. I have seen many jobs where standard tilers have abandoned the job because they couldn’t do it , mostly on the Victorian hallways and pathways that required bigger repair work though.
Do we use original or reproduction Victorian tiles for the repairs?
When we have a big patch to repair its always best to use at least a few original tiles in the mix. Original Victorian tiles are more grainy sort of thing and although the colours work well with the new reproduction ones , the original ones are just better.
We only need to use a few original ones in a patch repair , and if we blend them in evenly distributed they have quite an uplifting effect to the patch being repaired. When we do light repairs spread through out the floor the reproduction Victorian tiles work perfectly. I use the Winklemans tiles as they have a good colour palette to choose from
