Monday, April 28, 2008
Oak and tile flooring
Now that the renovation has moved downstairs I had to face up to one of the worst jobs. Shopping.
The lounge is going to be floorboarded and the kitchen area tiled, so to proceed much further floorboards and tiles need to be bought and a staircase chosen.
I used pine floorboards upstairs but really wanted oak or chestnut downstairs. It's much tougher, looks better and is more in keeping with an old cottage. Looking around the DIY shops, oak and chestnut floorboards came in at about 80 euros/m2. For a 40m2 space that really starts to get expensive. Fortunately someone recommended going direct to a sawmill to save money. This turned out to be a really good idea. We visited two sawmills, one in Combourg and another near St. Brieuc and had a surf on the 'net. It was really nice to see trees going in one end and finished flooring etc. coming out the other end. Kind of felt more satisfying to buy than from a DIY store.
The choice at the sawmills was a bit daunting, various widths, lengths and knottyness (quality) to choose from, but eventually we settled on some 15cm wide oak tongue and groove planks with lengths varying from 1m to 2m. There is a 3 week delay and then we should leave the wood to aclimatise in the room for another 2 weeks, but at least that was one job done and for 50 euro/m2. Well worth shopping around.
Floor and wall tiles next. I don't find making decisions on colour combinations that easy, and choosing the wrong colour floor tiles can really affect the style and limit later choices for wall and kitchen colours. Anyway, after much head scratching and umming and arhing we chose light terracotta style floor tiles and, a bit boring, white bathroom tiles. We did get some coloured border tiles to brighten things up a little.
All the tiles, grout, adhesive etc. was brought from a large DIY store in St. Brieuc. Normally it about a 40 minute drive. However with the trailer and car full of tiles we were seriously overloaded. I reckon the trailer was several hundred kilos overweight on it's own. Just to get the tyres back to a roughly round shape took a while with the air hose.
Driving back was certainly a bit of a hairy experience. Any faster than 70kmh (40 mph) caused snaking and bouncing and something not to be recommended. It's a bit scary going that slow on main roads. The journey back took 30 minutes longer than normal and it was a relief to get back in one piece.
It's very easy to under-estimate the weight of tiles.
| 12:11:22 PM
Oak and tile flooring
