Monday 19 May 2008

A New Project Afoot!

Ok we are officially mental, this is one of those decisions that seems like a brilliant idea at the time but I feel we will end up regretting it at a later date!

We have decided to replace the crappie, faded carpet that runs throughout the ground floor of our cottage, after looking at new carpets (none of which we liked very much) and discounting them, we started considering tiles instead. Great, nice idea, it will look lovely, now to find some tiles we can both agree on...mmmmm not so great.
After months of looking in the usual DIY and tiles shops, we still couldn't find anything we both really like enough to spend actually cash money on, so the outcome of all this... a reclaimed red quarry tile floor!

Yes, we have decided to go down the reclamation route, this is for several reasons, firstly the old tiles just look so much nicer, you can see the quality of the tile straight away, the other reason is the fact that most of the new tiles you buy in DIY store's are made and imported from other countries, China and Italy mostly. The air miles of these tiles really bothers me and that I cant seem to find a product like this thats made in the uk (and that are are affordable for mere mortals), so because their pretty and assuage my guilt we're buying reclaimed.

The only problem is getting enough of the same type of tile to do all of it (we're using 6" by 6" and 1" thick tiles incase you were wondering) and we have set ourselves a deadline of the middle of August (Rich has persuaded his poor Dad to help him lay them on his week off!) so I have from now till August to find some were in the region of 6,000 tiles!

Mostly we will be sourcing from reclamation yards, eBay and freecycle but if anyone knows of anyone who's lifting an old tile floor and needs to get rid of it please let me know (hell at this point even 1 or 2 extra tiles would be appreciated) we're happy to pay for them and collect (can you smell the desperation yet?)

So the posts from now on will feature a tile count at the bottom so you can see how we're getting on (I can tell your all hanging off you seats in suppressed excitement)

So there you are, enough tiles to do 3 rooms in 3 and a half months...No problem!

(Also I know technically this isn't to do with the garden but hey, its my blog so I'll put what I want on it!)



Total Number of Tiles: 20 (all from Freecycle)

Total Cost: £0

1 comment:

Sue said...

Hi
We have some 6" x6" terracota tiles which may be suitable.
E mail me for further information

Sue