Stone flooring

If you love the touch and look of a truly ancient material but cannot see the stone for the quarry, here’s a brief guide to what’s on offer by Irish retailers in stone flooring, plus one or two of its most worthy pretenders in ceramics.

Stone used for flooring can be polished or honed for a smooth finish and this makes a serious difference to the way it which it performs and survives underfoot. A honed surface stops short of a full polish and this texture delivers a non-slip finish perfect for flooring. Honed stone also hides minor wear and tear much better than its mirror shine equivalent. Terracotta, although a fired material, is generally included in the family of natural stone flooring and is well worth considering if you are on a budget and fancy an honest, honed surface.

Limestone comes in a range of guises from soft open poured travertine tiles to gritty, rugged flags. Softer limestone is not dense enough to withstand a full polish and like sandstone is left with a subtle honed surface. As well as being composed in patterns and borders using shape and colour, travertine can also be purchased engraved with bas-relief decoration or even sandblasted and is vein cut or crosscut for a distinctly different look. Regan Tile Designs Sassi (01-2800921) offer engraved panels for floor and walls in Italian travertine (Sassi Assisi) and mosaic panels and applied frescos from Padovani. Native limestones such as Liscannor taken from the Cliffs of Moher proudly wear traces of their geology in fascinating fossil tracks of marine worms that traveled through the ancient sentiments of Ireland over 350 million years ago. Liscannor limestone (065-7074078) provides an excellent non-slip flagstone that is perfect for indoor or outdoor paving. Dense, low absorbent varieties of limestone can be used in the bathroom but avoid using a soft limestone underfoot in high-stress area.

Sandstone also makes lovely flagstones but it does obviously have a gritty, abrasive and potentially dirt catching surface. On the other hand sandstone is extremely hard wearing and non-slip, with a magical golden glow full of surface character that is perfect for a shabby-chic country home. If you do have a seriously greasy spill on a sandstone floor try putting down some sawdust and allow this to soak up the stain for several hours.

Slate is a popular and inexpensive choice and the Chinese and Indian split-faced varieties are widely available through most local tile showrooms. It performs beautifully in kitchens, where it remains relatively non-slip even when wet. Slate comes in an array of attractively mottled colours with integral ‘rust streaks’. The tiles are relatively thin, easy to handle and therefore favoured by the DIY enthusiast. The rough uneven surface of slate can seem quite riven, chipped and degraded. This is part of its character, but you may have to sort the slates, putting the best front and centre and skirting the edge of the room with the rest. Colours range from browns through to very deep greens and almost purple varieties that can serious impact the colour scheme of your room. Take a look at the sumptuous Rex Shabu slate style tiles at Tile Style (01-8555200) if you want the smoother more regular touch of ceramic.

Marble is a hard metamorphic limestone that when properly finished and maintained should last a lifetime. An indulgent luxury it has a crisp edged urban character that might not suit a rugged country house or every period setting. An almost seam free marble floor can be inlaid with tracery, borders, natural mosaics and other patterns in an infinite number of ways. A fully polished marble has a semi-precious allure as the polishing process maximises the colour, pattern and veining of the stone. Antica do a number of honed marbles with incised decoration. Top quality ceramic floor tiles such as Porecelanosa from European Ceramic Design succeed in mimicking the beauty of marble without its terrifying price and the maintenance cost of the real thing. Study the tile for the subtle variations in colour and veining you would expect to see in a natural marble, a sign of careful design in a ceramic product. Marble is a porous material softer than granite that does not withstand scratches and spills left lingering on its surface.

Key in the cost of installation when you are budgeting for any flooring and consider the depth of the material as this may affect the height of your doors and door-saddles. In general the more expensive and heavier the floor, the more important it is to have the surface professionally laid. If you vouch for a mosaic panel or an applied fresco, it is strictly hands off! If you have any doubt about the strength or stability of your sub-floor pay for the advice of an engineer. A large range of anti-stain and colour enhancing treatments are available for stone. These tend to be specific for each type of material and specially formulated wax polishes are also available for marbles and travertine.

Maintenance will normally involve conventional cleaning and re-application of the treatments at intervals, so stick to a regular beauty regime for a life-long love affair.