Floors Floors Floors.......!

[*kate*]

This is my first post so a big hello to everyone<O</O

We moved into a new (old) house recently that needs renovating. We are feeling fairly confident about most of the jobs that need doing around the house but the floor in the bathroom and toilet have left us feeling a little flummoxed.<O</O

Both floors are painted concrete and the concrete has been 'scooped up' around all of the walls and around the bath. Presumably this has been done to contain the water in case we happen to flood the rooms.<O</O

Obviously if we leave it as it is tiling the floors/walls is not going to be possible. Does anyone have any experience of dealing with floors like this? If so, can you offer a practical, attractive solution? The only thing we thought of was to chip away the concrete in order to 'square' the corners off and then tile.<O</O

Also, can anyone recommend a good floor sanding company in or around the Perth/Fremantle area? We have original jarrah floorboards throughout the house that are in pretty good condition and would love to get them professionally sanded.<O</O<O</O

By the way this site is fantastic. Since moving into this house we have been using it more and more.<O</O

Many thanks<O</O

Kate

[bennylaird]

To save some work and achieve a great look why not keep the edges as they are and mosaic the edges with small tiles? The glass tiles I ise for mosaics are 20 mm square but I break them into 5mm sq.

Otherewise lots of work with a cold chisel.............And then work on the walls as well.

[bennylaird]

You can have some quite fine detail....

[Trav]

Hi Kate - welcome.

Your best bet would be to chip it away - perhaps hire a little kanga hammer or something. Then use a self-levelling agent to fill any holes and get a level surface. Then a bit of FC sheet and some tiles and you are done.

Trav

[ThePope]

no easy alternate ways around it I can think of so grab a kanga for half a day and you'll knock it over in no time.

[bennylaird]

I ripped up a tile and concrete floor with a cheap chinese hammer drill from Bunnings, cost $90 and had a chisel tip.

[*kate*]

Thanks for the comments so far. Bennylaird - the table is beautiful.

It seems there are two solutions: tile or destroy! (I was rather hoping that someone would suggest a third solution; waving a magic wand to make the problem dissapear!)

If we decide to tile (using small mosaic tiles) then that would probably be my job. The kanga hammer or hammer drill sounds much more like my boyfriends territory! So it looks like we'll be flipping a coin.

I'll post again to let you know how it goes.

Many thanks

[mic-d]

Hi Kate,
Tiling the cove would be the easiest option, either with mosaics as suggested or a cut of the floor tiles you will be using if you want a flat bevel. How high do you think the cove is? It looks like about 70-100mm in the photo which might be a little too big for my other suggestion, which is to lay a mortar bed (quite easy) but you would need to ramp up from the adjoining room, and if your bathroom floor is on timber, it would possibly be too heavy anyway. You can also hire floor grinders with dust extraction which may be a cleaner alternative, or get someone in to grind it for you (you need to get the paint off before tiling anyway). I wouldn't be jackhammering it out.

Cheers
Michael

[*kate*]

Hi mic-d,

Thanks for your suggestions.

The cove is 60mm.

[mic-d]

Hi Kate, OK that's easy then! Get some 50mm angle (either brass or alum) and sikaflex it across the doorway, then build up a mortar bed 50mm deep (see ontariotile.com deck mud or bathrooms). When you resheet the walls, just make up some long strips of timber that can be used as packers on all the studs. The thickness of the packers you would have worked out to allow the sheet to drop over that extra 10mm of cove and sit 5-6mm above the mortar floor. If you are tiling all the wall, you need to check that the walls are true otherwise any deformations may be transferred to the sheet material (you don't use adhesive on wall that are to be tile either) and then the tiles which may look ugly.
As alternatives you could use 40mm angle and a 40mm bed and thicker packers to cover the 20mm of cove. That would give you a smaller step into the room. Or forget about the packers altogether and grind away the last little bit of cove.

Cheers
Michael

[Dan_574]

dont hire a kanga, like was said go to bunnings and buy a gmc hammer drill for $99, does the job and can be used later. I have a similar one and has been used heaps to drill lots of holes into concrete and is still going strong.

[Studley 2436]

Talking about magic wands without criticising anyone else both taking to it with a kanga hammer and putting in angle and cladding the walls again seems like a lot of work.

You have it in a rough state but almost ready to finish at present. Remember knocking it all out means you will have to fill in level and smooth off the floor angle means you will have to do the walls.

Not sure I would mosaic it with tiles although it does look like it would make an interesting proposition if you were into tiling and could get a good result that way.

Aren't there (this is the magic wand) products that you can put on the floor that will level it out and look good as well. Basically waterproof bog! You could run this up the edges and even reshape them to get them looking better. I have a suspicion that you can get it in a marble type look which might be very effective.

Studley

[mic-d]

in angle and cladding the walls again seems like a lot of work.


Studley

You can't tile on the walls that are there now and sheeting some walls is not that difficult...
You have to use mortar on the floor, you can't fill a 60mm floor with self levelling compound, well you could if you had lots of money...
Cheers
Michael