Making a floor

[Anne]

Before I commit to this I wanted some opinions, just to make sure I'm doing the right thing. We've taken up the concrete floor in the kitchen, hallway and living room which was put down in the 80's. We put back the flagstones in the kitchen and hallway that we're tossed outside, very lucky they were there. Now I didn't intend to do the living room but after doing some work to the wall we discovered it was very damp under the concrete so out it goes not taking any chances that when I'm 80 it will move up my walls and I'll be to tired to deal with it. Now I have some flagstones left but not enough to do the whole room, my first thought was go and find some more flags, but I've looked and they don't match. At least I can't find any that match so my plan at the moment is to put flags back into the hearth and make a boarder around the room with them. So there is one flagstone depth running the length of the walls and then put in large quarry tiles in the center, I found some great ones that are 12"x9" and we could fill the center of the room with these.

My concerns are the house is medieval and while I'm pretty sure they had a sort of quarry tiles even back then I have no idea if my boarder thing is at all authentic.

As far as building the floor, we're on a sandstone base here so no need for hardcore. What we did was use NHL5, sand and LECA and mixed it in equal parts, we bedded the flags directly in, it's been a few months and seems to have worked great, is there any reason I can't do the same with quarry tiles? The tiles are about 2" thick, very solid and quite heavy.

So what do you think, good plan, bad plan?

 

[biffvernon]

Good plan.

It may not be medieval authentic but then neither is your bathroom or the electric lighting.

 

[Nemesis]

Tiles certainly have been used for centuries, although possibly not in modest buildings at the outset:

http://www.tilesoc.org.uk/beginguide.htm


It seems to me a very good thing to do, natural and sympathetic materials which will work in harmony with each other, and the building, while retaining as much of the original flooring material as you can.