Floor treatment #2

After everybody went to bed tonight, I found myself in the kitchen, trying to work, and having little success. Insects were bothering me and I first thought I would use this floor cleaning product that is also an insect repellent, but then I thought, why not apply the second coat of hard oil on the floor? Surely the turpentine in it will discourage quite a few insects too, and I've waited long enough to see how much oil got absorbed by the stone and the mortar.

Here is the floor just after I wiped a hard oil soaked terrycloth on it. I used very little this time, probably less than 0.25 litre of the mix for a 15sqm room (probably closer to 10sqm, since I didn't move the hob, fridge, and freezer and there are built-in shelves on one wall that extend to the floor and I didn't touch them either). It's shiny because the stone hasn't absorbed the oil yet. We'll see tomorrow how much was absorbed and how much needs to be wiped from the stones.

I still like the way the stone's colours are deepened by the hard oil and how they are set out against the mortar. I can't wait to do the rest of the house!

Floor treatment

After a discussion with a colleague who's been treating her stone floor with linseed oil and turpentine for decades, I've decided to bypass the R&D part and follow her advice.

Although the natural, untreated stone is wonderful theoretically and works well on the porch, it does show its limits indoors, especially in terms of dust raised (not so much by the stone, of course, but rather by the mortar, which seems to be very sandy) and stains in the kitchen and elsewhere. When food is cooked from scratch every day, when you have a 3-year old child and an indoor cat, stains are not something you can just ignore and hope they won't happen.

Here is the floor before treatment:

I checked a few websites and came up with a 80% linseed oil / 20% turpentine mix, which I applied with a terrycloth diaper, since it had to be something soft, that wouldn't shed too much on the irregular stone and mortar floor, and that would soak up the oil. 

Here is the kitchen floor after the first application. We love the way it  brings out the stone with its many hues, and defines it in contrast with the mortar, which looks more sandy than ever.

The stone doesn't seem to be extremely porous, so I don't think it needs much more than 2 "coats", but the mortar in between may be more thirsty. I'll go on hands and knees tonight again, when everybody else is in bed, and see in the morning how much more work is needed, if at all. I may just have to polish to remove the excess on the stone and somehow push it into the mortar.

To be continued...

Experimenting with stone floor sealing

Long time no blog! I'm now living in my dream house in the bush, with visiting cattle (a lot), birds of all descriptions and interesting flora. For various reasons (time constraints, mostly), the house is not 100% completed and all the painting and floor finishing remain to be done. Of course, it's far more difficult once you are already living in a one-room, loft-style place, but it will have to be done, somehow.

My most immediate need is to seal the natural stone floor so that stains won't permeate and spoil it. I was thinking of a clear stone varnish, but then thought I'd like something more natural, and easier to apply (again, considering we are already living in the house). I came across various options that fit my requirements, among which liquid black soap; boiled linseed oil; a 80-90% to 10-20% linseed oil + turpentine mix; and olive oil; to which I added, tentatively, coconut oil (well, why not?).

This begs for experimentation. I've therefore collected 5 stones remaining from the stone laying work and traced a line in the middle, to make the "before" and "after" very visible. I only have coconut and olive oil at home today, so these are what I started with. I'll get linseed oil and black soap tomorrow, hopefully.

I will document the progress of this multiple experiment here.

To be continued, then!