Tiling our Victorian Terrace


Our verandah tiles are by far my favourite part of the house. A lot of terrace houses have room for a small garden at the front but ours doesn't, so I knew the tiles were going to provide the wow factor for our front 'yard'.

 After about one second of deliberation, we decided to go with a traditional tessellated pattern rather than a modern pattern so we trawled the fancy streets of Carlton for designs we liked. We took photos of these to a couple of tile-laying companies and they were able to translate them into designs that suited our house perfectly. 

 For once, Gary agreed with me that this wasn't a job that we could do ourselves to a good enough standard so we had professional tilers do (most of) the work and the results are absolutely breathtaking, if I do say so myself. And I do. Daily.

 Read on to learn about the process or just scroll straight to the bottom if you love a good before and after bonanza. 

Laying the Foundations 

We had already poured foundations for the bluestones. This stage is where we poured a slab for the tiles.

 The area to be tiled was dug out to 120mm below the finished floor level. Conduits were buried in the dirt to allow for the replacement of internet, gas, water and phone lines without ripping up the tiles (in Australia these all need 100mm spacing from each other, and to be 600mm below dirt or 100mm below concrete). 

 The dirt was compressed and levelled with a slope of 1:100 towards the street for drainage. Next we put down black builders plastic and steel reinforcing mesh on little plastic chairs to hold it 50mm above the plastic sheet (and in the middle of the concrete slab). 


Concrete was poured to a thickness of 100mm, leaving a 20mm gap for the tiles to be layed and finish flush with the blue stone fence. The concrete was covered and kept damp for 2 weeks to cure. The result is very strong and flat concrete - the perfect base for tiles that should last a long time. 



Selecting a Tiling Company 

We initially spoke to a very well-known Melbourne heritage tiling company who were extremely knowledgeable and had lots of advice and opinions on what would suit our house best. While I valued the knowledge, I like a bit more input than was really being allowed. We got a quote from that company which was upwards of $12 000 so that was immediately a bit fat no anyway.

 We got in touch with Frieda Waschmann at Regeneration Tiles in Kensington. She was very collaborative to work with as well as being knowledgable and very very patient. We ended up working with her and were happy with Regeneration Tiles throughout every stage of the process.

Design 

Choosing the design was easy, choosing the colours was tough.

 The design we chose is called the Carlton with a Norwood border. It seems as though there is no common language for the names of heritage tile designs although there are common patterns. The companies we spoke to had designs that were exactly the same but the names were different for almost all of them. Being able to bring pictures of tiling we had seen and liked definitely helped with choosing a pattern.

 Acknowledging that between the both of us, we have exactly one skerrick of knowledge about colour theory as it relates to house design, we were pretty nervous with choosing the colours.

 The colours we already had in the scheme out front needed to tie in without becoming too busy: blues for the front door and all the metalwork, reds and yellows for the bricks. And with blue, red and yellow in mind, I was also aware of becoming a bit too 'primary school'.
We tried to choose colours sympathetic to the house exterior and its heritage.
Frieda at Regeneration tiles suggested choosing from these colours. 
I ended up abandoning Gary and his uninformed and generally uninterested colour choices ("Just go with the one they sent us") and took mum to the tile shop where we spent a solid 90 minutes moving different tiles on and off until we found the right mix. Can people even renovate without mums?

 The tiles are ceramic tiles with encaustic tiles in the centre of each pattern repeat.



The final design 

Installation

The tilers first cleaned and screed the slab, then had to lay, grout and clean the tiles. This took 2.5 days and two professional tilers and then it was all done. Too easy.

The Final Stage

This final stage mostly consists of me creeping behind the curtains in the front lounge listening for passers-by to make pleasing comments about how beautiful your new tiles are. If you get your own tiles done, this stage isn't essential but comes highly recommended by me.







Cost: $4921 (Tiles $2085, Installation $2486, Materials (Concrete and steel) $350)
Time taken: 4.5 days (1 day digging, 1 day prep and pour concrete, not including concrete curing time, 2.5 days tile laying) 

-Emily 

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