Classical 11.5m2 to 14m2 ceramic floor with double borders
An antique ceramic encaustic floor dating from the early twentieth century, reclaimed from the entrance hall and reception room of a house in Namur, Belgium.
The floor is a classical design in a cool palette offering a geometric tessellation and framed by a fluidly designed same size and half size border for which all four corner tiles are available for both.
The floor has cleaned well, the ceramic is good quality and the patina displays tiles with occasional tonal variations in the slip, owing to their handmade production in small batches, and some tiles displaying edge nibbles or small chips, as can be seen in the high resolution photographs below.
The floor totals 11.5m2 / 125 sq ft though there is the opportunity to increase that to 14m2 / 150 sq ft with free field tiles that we include. These are tiles that contain what is called a capillary crack and can be seen in the last photograph in the gallery. A capillary crack formed when the tile left the kiln after being fired and came into contact with damp air, in other words a humid drying environment that day. The tiles were trying to dissipate their heat while at the same time reacting to humid air around them and the result was a surface crack a mere millimetre deep but anything from 1cm to 3cm long appearing. The crack does not effect the solidity the tile (they have been walked on for around 100 years already and are 150mm thick!) and can be integrated into the floor with confidence. But we allow you to make that choice and the 130 field tiles with a capillary crack are included free either for full use* or use as halves and cuts by your tiler.
*If you were to use the tile as a full tile and integrate it into the floor it would mean around 23% of the total field tiles, or one in five, would display a capillary crack, though many are so small they are difficult to see.
Being ceramic and highly fired the tiles can be laid inside or outside of the home and will work very efficiently with underfloor heating systems.
Tiles sizes - Field tiles +/- 138mm sq, Large border tiles +/- 140mm sq, Small borders +/- 140mm x 75mm
Tile quantities, give or take one or two:-
FIELD TILES - 440 - 8.6m2 / 93 sq ft.
LARGE BORDER TILES - 93 plus 4 corners - 1.9m2 / 20.5 sq ft or 13.6 linear metres, 44.5 linear feet.
SMALL BORDERS - 110 plus 4 corners - 1.1m2 / 11.8 sq. ft or 15.4 linear metres, 50.5 linear feet.
