I love the red quarry tiled flooring in my hallway, it’s a period feature of property and solid quality. Unfortunately it’s in need of restoration and a cleaning. There are some tiles that are cracked and worn. I’m not ready to do a full re-vamp of the hallway but just want it looking better, so figured a thorough clean is in order.
There’s so much I want to do to this space, especially as its the first thing you see on entering, but it’s just not in my budget at present. I want to strip and sand the banister back and start afresh with a nice stair runner and I’d like the walls skimmed too. A professional tile cleaning service would be ideal for the floor, but it goes against my whole DIY ethos… although maybe as a last resort or treat when we really go to town on the hallway.
When looking into replacing the cracked tiles, we came up against a small hurdle, trying to source 3″ x 3″ red quarry is impossible. It seems to be an odd size – probably due to the age of the property and tiles. I won’t give up my search though, it just means replacement of these tiles may take a while longer or I’m going to have to cut tiles. Nooooo!
The flooring was salt stained and faded in places with some tiles being marked up from use. We attempted to give them a solid clean to see if we could get them looking… well not like new, they are over 100 years old after all, but I was hoping we could get them cleaner and brighter.
We got some advice from a local tile shop and purchased LTP Grimex Intensive Tile Cleaner, which Andy applied to the whole floor as directed with a scrubbing brush.
As you can see below there is a little difference, but not enough of a change for my liking. I was going to seal them, but decided against wasting more product and time when we need to replace the damaged ones.
Before we did anything. 
After we used the scrub.
Now the tiles are cleaner you can see that some of them are cracked, thats my next job to source some replacement quarry tiles.
Let the scrubbing commense. 
A nice bright red after cleaning.
The floor is looking a slightly brighter red, but you can still see where people have walked, the tiles down the centre are more dull and rough looking. I’m going to have to re-think the flooring when we next come to do the hallway – probably next year.
It’s going to be a tough choice – do I keep the quarry’s or go for a modern flooring instead.
Let me know what you think in the comments and I’ll keep you updated on the hallway renovation/decoration as we go along.
Helloyellowdoor 