Floored

At the show in Kensington last month I decided to spend my last money on a real stone floor for my kitchen.  I bought real marl flagstones from Richard Stacey.  

Also on the photo:  my AGA which I made from a kit by Gable End Designs (see my post here), my hand painted tiles after 17th century designs and my new kitchen chair made by Colin Bird.  

The example at the stand had the perfect colour I wanted for my kitchen:  predominantly grey with a little hint of yellow ochre.  I did ask if the tiles I bought would be similar to the example (which they assured me they would be) but I stupidly did not check the packages myself before I bought them.

  When I got home and laid out the tiles, this is what I got:  mostly yellow ochre in colour with just a few (the ten in the middle) in the grey colour I had wanted.  

I was a bit upset as these flagstones are not cheap!  But as I was contemplating sending them back (oh the hassle!),   my 'work with what you've got'  mentality kicked in again.  I decided to lay them and try painting over them.

As I forgot to bring my dolls house work book to the show, I had to guess the size of my kitchen, resulting in only having just enough flagstones for the floor.  And I really mean just enough!  I only have two little scraps left.  I did not tile the spaces where I will have the sink and cupboards.  

After having glued down the flagstones, I went outside and sanded them down with my sander as they were quite uneven.  As you can imagine that created an awful lot of dust but it was easy to do and the result is great!

As per instructions from Richard Stacey, I sealed and then grouted the tiles.  The flagstones looked pretty good then, but still too yellow to my liking.  I went ahead and put several washes of watery acrylic paint on top of them.  It worked a treat!  The grouting luckily did not take the colour, but the flagstones did!  You can still see the yellow but it is not that strong any more.  Perfect!

The last thing I did was to put a thin coat of floor wax on them so they have that soft shine like old floor sometimes have.

My next job was making the windows for the kitchen.  As I wrote in a previous post (here), I use real glass for my windows.   I am getting better at cutting glass, as this time I cut all three window panes perfectly without messing up once.  

This house will consist of a series of room boxes which will eventually form one big house.  When all the boxes are finished I will start on the outside, which at the moment is not looking too pretty as you can see.  

But I am happy with how the floor and windows look!  I now need to start on the kitchen cabinets and cupboards.  That will take some time.  To be continued...