Restoration by the day, £260; a typical hallway three to five days
Victorian and encaustic hallway restoration
The geometric and encaustic hallway floors in Barry's Victorian terraces, cleaned, the loose tiles lifted and relaid, the missing ones matched from reclaimed stock or new reproductions, and sealed. Or a new Victorian-pattern floor laid from scratch.
Barry has streets of Victorian and Edwardian terraces with geometric tiled hallways, many under forty years of carpet and lino. We have restored more than two hundred. Almost all of them can be saved, even when the owner thinks they are ruined, because the tiles themselves are hard as stone; it is the bed underneath that fails.
We lift the carpet and the gripper, clean the floor with a deep clean and a poultice for the old adhesive, and lift every loose and cracked tile. Loose tiles are cleaned back and relaid in a lime-based bed; cracked and missing ones are matched from our stock of reclaimed tiles (salvaged from floors that could not be saved) or from reproduction makers who still make the original colours and shapes. Then the floor is sealed with a breathable sealer, because Victorian floors laid on earth or rubble need to breathe.
If a floor really is beyond saving, or there was never one, we lay a new Victorian-pattern floor in reproduction geometric tiles, with a border, a field pattern and a front-door mat well, set out from the doorway. The calculator handles the field; the patterns are drawn on the survey.
What is included
- Carpet, gripper and old adhesive removed
- A deep clean and a poultice for stains
- Loose tiles lifted and relaid on a lime bed
- Missing tiles matched from reclaimed stock
- A breathable sealer
- New Victorian-pattern floors set out from the door
What it costs
Restoration by the day, £260 a day including VAT and materials; a typical hallway three to five days. New Victorian-pattern floors from £85 a square metre laid. Including VAT, adhesive, grout and trims; tiles are yours or ordered at trade price and passed on at cost. The calculator counts the tiles, boxes and bags and prices the labour.
Questions about victorian hallways
Can my hallway be saved?
Probably. If most of the tiles are there and most are sound, yes. Send us a photograph with the carpet pulled back at one corner and we will tell you honestly.
Where do the replacement tiles come from?
Our reclaimed stock, from floors we could not save, and from the two makers in Britain who still make Victorian geometric tiles in the original sizes and colours.
Why not seal it with a gloss sealer?
Because a floor on an old bed needs to breathe, or damp gets trapped under the sealer and turns it white. We use a breathable matt or satin sealer.
Measure the wall, count the boxes, then a survey.
The calculator turns your width and height into tiles, whole boxes, adhesive and grout bags, the labour and the days for your tile and pattern. The quote form takes two minutes; Lowri measures every wall and floor at a free survey and the written quote follows within three working days.