Floor Tiles as Skirting

[r.rain]

Hello All

I have some small areas in my kitchen that will need skirting on after I have finished tiling and I've been thinking of alternatives to the wood/UPVC or MDF type. The floor will be granite tiles, Nero Assoluto (Jet Black) and I think I may use these floor tiles for the skirting. The tiles will be cut to size probably 5 inches high. The walls are painted brilliant white.

Has anoyone ever done this and if so were they pleased with results? Can anyone see any issues with doing this??

TIA

Cheers

Richard

[Andy Hall]

I've done this with slate in the utility room and it works well.

I have granite worktops and have some vertical upstands above worktop height in a thinner version of the same material. For flooring, if the material is only about 10mm or so thick then I think that that would be fine, otherwise I think it would look funny if thicker. Also I would suggest getting the top front edges eased *very* slightly, maybe 3mm or so radius, to either a rounded or perhaps bevelled shape as it will improve the appearance.

It would also be an idea not to use tile cement or grout in the joint between the two, but a flexible jointing compound to allow for any slight movement between wall and floor.

I presume that you are going to go for either a black or grey grout? You can get matching compounds to most of them.

[nightjar]

My house in France has this everywhere, but done with ceramic tiles. Quite a lot of them have cracked, apparently from impact at about the right height for an upright vacuum cleaner to be the culprit.

Colin Bignell

[Anna Kettle]

My dad did that in a loo and it is ideal - hardwearing, washable, attractive

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

01359 230642

[r.rain]

Great, thanks. I too have granite worktops, well when they come I will and I have ordered upstands too. Out of interest what thickness are your upstands?

The tiles are 10mm thicknes and have a slight bevelled edge anyways so they should be good to go.

I'll go hunt for some jointing compound

As far as grout goes, I have used grey grout in the past for my hallway, is black grout that much difference in appearance. I thought the grey stuff looked just like black and in the past most people I have spoken with have used grey, is this just personal preference, or is there something specifically different between black and grey grout apart from the colour!

Cheers

Richard

[Paul Giverin]

In message , nightjar writes

Its standard practice in most European countries IME. It looks quite good I think and I don't know why its not done more over here.

[Andy Hall]

About 18mm

I don't think so, but I would expect that black would fade slightly to a very dark grey which is probably OK.

I looked at colours in connection with our worktops etc. and personally would not have selected mid grey and definitely not white, so I think dark grey or black is probably OK.

I'd suggest getting a couple of the tiles and putting them down on a piece of ply or something and grouting them with a small sample of grout then looking at it over a day or two to see if you like it.

It's a relatively expensive material, so you want to get it right :-)

[r.rain]

Thanks all!

Cheers

Richard

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm about to do this. I'm thinking of recessing the tiles into the wall/plaster so the edge of the tile is level with the plaster. As the tile edges roll down a little, this will mean the tile face is about 1-2mm proud of the wall. This also means I don't have to use tiles with one rounded edge (which aren't available in the style anyway).

When I was looking around at other floor installations to get ideas, one thing I noticed in our office is that this has been done with the carpet. The skirting is actually carpet, and it's recessed into the wall by the carpet thickness making the front surface flush. I wouldn't do that at home with carpet, but I liked the idea for tiles.

[Ian White]

There's a European Commission building in Luxembourg where the carpet continues on up the wall to dado height... aka "The Padded Cell".

[bigcat]

attractive

Wouldnt that affect the flushing performance?

NT