Totally Floored!
- Meenatchi Sneha
- Sep 23, 2023
- 7 min read
Traditional home
Olden Tamil, Kerala House maari,
Muttram, Thoon lam Vechu
Apo,
Athangudi Tiles dhana?
My head screams NOOOOOO
It would be nice. Athangudi tiles would be a good idea, but I wanted something even better. What's exciting if it's predictable?
As with any other part of the house, I had gathered ideas for flooring from Pinterest too. The mood of the house wasn't "Typically Traditional"; it needed to be Modern-traditional. Architects out there, there must be a name for this style, please help me with that.
I DID NOT want Athangudi tiles in the house for the following reasons:
They are generally too colorful. That's not the kind of vibrance I wanted in the house.
They are small tiles, and I preferred larger pieces.
I wanted a rustic finish to the flooring with minimal polish. I didn't want a shining house; I wanted the flooring to exist and not EXIST.
With those suggestions, when I had my mood board ready, a friend of mine who saw the board suggested I try Kota stones. So that was the exact feel I was looking for. He gave quite a few insights about the stones. They come in two finishes generally, Mirror finish (polished up to 8 times) and leather finish (a rough rustic finish).
They come in a variety of colors, but my heart kept going to grey every time I looked up pictures on the internet.
Now the search for the stones began in Thanjavur, traveled to Madurai, and finally landed in Red Hills, Chennai. In fact, throughout the process, I learned quite a few things, and here they are:
Kota is a type of stone and not a tile.
Kota is originally from the Northern part of India, whereas Sahabad is from Andhra Pradesh. They are similar in terms of texture and vary in terms of color and quality. Kota is comparatively stronger than Sahabad and is available mostly in a green shade. Whereas Sahabad can chip off during use but is strong nonetheless. It is available in grey. The other colors in Kota stone are yellow, blue, etc.
The carpet area of the house was about 1000 sqft, and the garden and backside of the house were about another 800-1000 sqft area. We had decided to landscape the garden and back area to some extent too, as the complete area has clayey soil, and walking on them during a rainy day would be a mess. This meant there was a lot of stone to be purchased, and transporting so much from the Northern part of India was going to be expensive. Moreover, grey was available along the sides of Red Hills, and thus we decided to get it from Red Hills, Chennai.
The size of tile/stones plays an important role in the price. Larger sizes are more expensive. But they also mean more wastage in the case of tiles. As when cutting, tiles might crack, and the pieces cannot be reused. The same follows in the case of stones, but they tend to crack less. The leftover pieces are generally used for corners that would be hidden under cupboards or for skirting.
Skirting is again done using tile/stone whichever is used for the floor. This is to protect the wall during mopping. The stain would otherwise show up on the wall. Tiles/stone make it easier to clean up.
Calibration of stones is an additional cost. These are generally not necessary for tiles; however, for stones like Kota, Sahabad, these are necessary as they would be of varying thickness and would complicate the laying process. So, what is this calibration in a stone? It is leveling the stones to a similar thickness at the factory itself. We, therefore, got the calibrated ones for the interior of the house and rough ones for the outside. The thickness of the stones for the exterior varied from about 1.5” to 3”. The difference wouldn't show up much as the space between stones was planned to be about 3” on exteriors.
Spacers are used to give gaps between the stones on the interior and exteriors. On the interior, a spacing of 3 mm is given (using small plastic pieces of the required thickness). This gap is later filled using cement and grout. Colors can be added with these to match the colors of the stones. In this case, black oxide was mixed.
Before the tile laying begins, the level is set at 4-5 places in the room or hall. It is done by heaping cement-sand mixture and placing a stone/tile on it. This holds the tile/stone firm. The top of all such tile/stones placed is all on the same level, and this would be the level of the finished flooring. Every time a tile/stone is laid, a thread is held and checked with the levels set as a benchmark (check pictures for more clarity).
While setting tile/stone for level, there is a slope provided towards the drain in a bathroom and in the Muttram in this case. It is made to drain into the outlet. Care is to be taken to make sure that the water is directed to the drain hole and not the corner.
The flooring level and the thickness of the tiles had to be conveyed to the plumbing team before laying in the bathroom as they had to adjust the closet accordingly. In case the outlet of the closet is placed a little away from the desired position, a wax mouth (available in the market) could be used to alter the position up to 3-5 cm. However, it's best to accurately position the outlet as much as possible during concreting and avoid breaking the concrete later.
The stones were cut to sizes wherever needed, for example, near the Thoons. The thoons were placed before the flooring due to the height adjustment that needed to be done to the thoon. This meant the flooring stone was cut accordingly. Care had to be taken to make sure there were not many bit pieces to make it look decent in the end.
Mutrram had to be contrasted from the other areas, and here we thought we'll use the Press Clay tiles also called as Thattu odu or terracotta tiles. These are generally used on the terrace flooring. There are advanced versions of these made of plaster-of-paris. They are completely white and provide amazing cooling (as said by the seller). However, white I thought would be too much of a contrast for the house, and we shifted to the traditional choice of press clay tiles, and I must say they go amazing with the wall behind. They again come in various qualities like the kiln-fired bricks based on the finishing. They are available in just one size - 10” X 10”. Had they been in yellow, they could easily be mistaken for mysore pak, that is how beautiful they were when laid. They were again laid with spacers of 3 mm. The gap elevated the look, and we thus decided to give a contrasting grout (black) in between to cover up the space. Over years, however, they might require repainting on the surface as they are continually exposed to sun and water, and it would be up to us to differentiate the colors or go with plain terracotta.
Placing these stones and clay tiles could be done in multiple ways; we preferred regular row-wise arrangement for the general house flooring and diagonal placing for the Muttram. This would only affect the aesthetics and the time consumed to do the flooring as placing them diagonally might require more cutting and patiently placing them in rows.
Putting aside the stones for the interior and exterior, one other major work for the people fixing the tiles is the slab work. Slab for the balcony, where it was planned like a sit-out, the kitchen counter-top, and the bathroom sink counter-top. We had decided to get back to the black theme for all these slabs and found out a Quartz stone locally. They are completely black without grains or spots, and I thought they would be perfect for the countertops. However, they didn't look as strong as granite, therefore, for the sit-out, we decided to go with Granite - black color, it was called Galaxy. It had small specks of white and grey in it, but was suitable for the exteriors and since it had to rest on a few pillars and hold more weight unlike the counter tops which would be held by the plywoods below them.
The space for the sink had to be cut, and the quartz happened to develop cracks when a small area had to be cut for the sink. We later figured out that it is best to cut them after placing it on the counter top with support on maximum edges and using a suitable blade. The types of blades vary for tiles, granite, etc., and care had to be taken on that behalf.
Edging and nosing could be done in multiple ways for the slabs, the front face of the stairs. To add thickness to the slab and to prevent water from dripping through the top, a thin layer of another granite is stuck to it (using an adhesive called fast-setting Araldite). The face of it is layer ground and polished to a preferred edging style.
Did we miss the beautiful bathroom tiles? Yes. So for the walls of the bathroom we decided to buy black rustic piece from Vermora. They were of the size 4’X2’ and we covered upto 8’ height in the bathroom. We had however left one wall exposed just for the feel of it. It however need to be waterproofed as water does seep through CSEB.
Generally when the base of the house is not made with concrete layers of Aggregare (Jalli), cemen-sand mixture is put in the base and rammed to compaction. This creates an even surface. It is again topped with cement-sand mixture and layer stones or tiles are laid on top of it - this is the procedure that is also followed on the exterior of the house. Here in the interior however since the base was made of concrete this wasn't necessary. However, the imperfections in the concreting levels had to be
This was done on a contract basis, and people charged us on a square feet basis - separately for the flooring and for the slab work. They have been quite an experienced lot, and that has lowered a lot of pressure that we had to take up. They have been open to ideas and suggestions from our side, making it a happier place to work in.
When I started this blog, I was wondering what really is there to talk about the flooring, but I see it has come quite a long way. It's probably my most recent purchase for the home and has stayed newer in memory.
I would love to hear from all those reading these blogs because this is my first try putting down my thoughts with fewer edits and my first construction. Feel free to comment about the construction and writing style. Is it too detailed or too less detailed? I would also like to know the kind of readers I am catering to and what their reading interests would be like.
As it's your time that you share with me, I feel it's my responsibility to make the best of it, so yes, go jump to the comment section and say Hi!
Thank you, amazing people!
Hope you have a great day ahead :)
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