Kent Farmhouse: Kitchen and Boot Room

This is the second project Tile in Progress completed at this 17th-century farmhouse in Kent. The en-suite bathroom came first. The kitchen and boot room floor came next and brought a problem that is common in old properties with modern extensions but not always easy to solve. Half the floor sat over the original timber joist structure of the existing house. The other half sat on a concrete slab belonging to the newer extension. Two different substrates, two completely different movement characteristics, and one continuous limestone floor expected to run across both without any visible join, difference in level, or sign that it was ever two things rather than one.
Before any tile could go down, the floor joists in the original section were reinforced to give the old structure the rigidity that large format stone demands. The two surfaces were then levelled to a common datum. Underfloor heating was installed throughout at this stage, which added its own set of constraints around the floor build-up height in a room with low ceilings that could not afford to lose any. Getting that sequence right took careful planning before a single material was ordered. The preparation was the job.

The limestone is 600 x 900mm at 15mm thick. At that format and that weight, any variation left in the substrate will show in the finished floor. Large format stone on a base that is not perfectly prepared will rock, creak and eventually crack at the joints. The preparation work here took the time it needed because there was no shortcut worth taking. Once the substrate was right, the setting out was planned so the limestone ran consistently through the kitchen and continued into the boot room without the pattern breaking awkwardly at the threshold between the two spaces. The floor reads as one room because it was planned as one room from the start.
One detail that is easy to miss in the photographs is the concealed door within the kitchen cabinetry. The door leads through to the boot room and from the kitchen side it reads as part of the cabinet run, tiled to match the floor so it disappears completely into the scheme. Tiling a door that has to open and close cleanly, align precisely with the surrounding floor, and show no visible join at its edges is a precise piece of work. It is the kind of detail that nobody notices when it is done well. Which is exactly the point. The finished floor ties together a room that sits across two centuries of construction and makes it feel like it was always one space.