1920s Kitchen Quarry Tiles - Restore or Replace?

[McAhuna]

So we are doing the kitchen in our 1928 house.
Under the old lino we find the original reddish quarry tiles. But they are in bad nick, covered in glue and one or two missing (replaced by concrete).

It will cost £400-£600 to professionally clean and restore them, but they won't ever be perfect, the concrete gaps will be painted rather than replaced.

The second option is to buy modern replica quarry tiles and tile them over the top, which won't work out much more expensive. Whilst not original, they will be in keeping with the house character. Only thing is they will be glued over the top of the original tiles (destroying them fortever) and put in using modern grouting, rather than the original 1920s method where they were pressed together.

Third option is simply forget the original feature and put vinyl floor covering over.

Any views? Are the 2nd and 3rd options sacrilege/vandalism, etc? or are we being overly sentimental here?

[boxedin]

Can you get any second hand ones from a reclaimer to fill the gaps and as replacements.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/victorian-quarry-tiles

Won't you have to board over before putting down vinyl floor if you don't take them up ?

[BillyGoat]

I've got those in my kitchen, under laminate floor now.

When we got the house some 11 odd years ago, we thought how amazing it would be to keep it as a feature floor. After a LOT of work, the tiles cleaned up to a reasonable standard (not professional, by any shot) and looked nice.

They were sat on a compacted bed of sand, then on compacted hardcore with no DPM of any kind.

They. Were. Freezing.

Literally sucked the heat out of the room that the radiator and oven couldn't replace (house was internally insulated on all external walls, loft, double glazing windows and doors.

Quite quickly, we fell out of love with them and put insulating underlay and laminate - it was wonderful.

When it comes to re-doing the kitchen or moving it, whatever happens, the floors will be coming up, dug up and skipped and either an insulated suspended floor or a concrete floor with insulation and appropriate flooring will go down.

I'll not loose a days sleep of skipping the lot.

Hope that helps?

BG

[dewaltdisney]

I am with BG on this, pull them up and skip them. Put down a well insulated floor of your choice and nothing too pricey as whatever you choose it will look dated ten or so years down the line. Original features are what ginks on House in the Country chunter on about but all this is old hat now and no one wants to live in an Edwardian film set.

DWD