We have limestone floors and I *love* them. Don't have pix to show you but so far they are very easy to maintain and not at all hard on my back. We put radiant heat under the floors because the limestone runs from the front door and foyer through to the kitchen. Dining room and living room which flank the kitchen are hardwood.

This is not our limestone, but one that is very similar.

{{!gwi}}

Eliz

I have tiles floors in a vacation condo and absolutely....HATE it. The tiles are not the problem, it is keeping all that light grout clean. Every time we go there, I spend my time working on cleaning portions of the grout. It is neverending.

fin1, what kind of porcelain tile do you have? We have been looking all over for a tile that mimics slate

Eliz,What is the name of your limestone? We decided not to do limestone countertops because of softness, possible stain issues, maintenance, etc. - are you not having issues with that on the floor or is there some way to finish it to avoid that?

(bump) on hillblazer - fin1, what kind of porcelain is yours? We came home from the tile store today with tons of samples - some of the porcelain are nice, but none as close to slate look as I would like...

We have had slate floors in our dining room for almost 10 years. When we decided to remodel the kitchen we continued the slate into our kitchen. We love it. It doesn't show dirt and is very organic looking. I do use a gel mat in front of the sink. I do have travertine in our new bath and love it (it is heated) but I do like the slate better for the kitchen.

momorichel, I'm travelling now and won't be home for a few days; I'd have to look it up on our invoice; drawing a complete blank! It's honed and the GC sealed it with impregnator. We haven't had any major spills but so far it cleans up beautifully. I'll get you the name as soon as I can. In the meantime, here's another pic that shows our tile with some of our other finishes.

mom

congrats on your remodel -

In a word yes, stone will be harder with standing in the kitchen cooking - that said it also has qualities that people embrace - cool in summer - relatively easy maintenance - depending on stone and grout -

I understand you dilema w/the pergo - so agree that your kit may not be suited w/real hw - Have you ck'd out cork - you could search here & find pics - It is easy to maintain, easy on the body, -and may be a very cool option with bamboo cabs

http://www.themarmoleumstore.com/

I searched for flooring for my mud/powder room area - Bill V (who is the resident tile/stone expert) - referred me to Dal tile & recommended Porcelain as bullet proof -
The pics I've linked on Dal don't do the tile justice - I really didn't set looking for a stone look alike, I set out to get a bullet proof mud floor

Very happy we went with it - it was installed 3 yrs ago & takes heavy use/abuse - It always looks clean - grout never a problem - The price was right too

Go tile/stone shopping bring samples/boards home -live with them for awhile

Good luck

Here is a link that might be useful: continental slate

Thank you jej, eliz, all for your input! We have tons of procelain tiles now to live with for a few days and see what we pick...will keep you all posted. I don't think we've got the "perfect" one yet - but we'll see.

momo

I've had this travertine in my mudroom and laundry room, and bathroom for about 9 months. I love it so much we will be carrying it through into the kitchen also. It doesn't show ANY dirt, grit, dog hair, etc. etc. It is amazing. I have to remember to vacuum and wash it.

It is Florida Tile's Pietra Art Chiselled Edge Travertine in the color Picasso. I love how each tile is unique.

momo - NOW I understand. Makes perfect sense. I don't think I'd do it either. Though you could always do a cool mosaic tile transition piece between the two areas.

rmlanza: Your slate looks a lot like the slate I had picked out for my kitchen (and which we might use for the great room). It's good to hear about your positive experiences with it. Cute furkids, too.

We went with limestone on our floor and are very happy with it. We do not find it too hard on our feet. We do use rugs at the range and sink.

It has been very easy to maintain and spills have cleaned up easily. We sealed it and have not had much problems with stains. The stains we did have from oily substances disappear over time.

Here is a picture:

We installed travertine chosen hastily when my dream ceramic tile was unavailable. I seriously had to reassure myself that, if I ended up hating it, I would allow myself to tear it all up in a year or two and put in something else. Well, I ended up loving it. It's not exactly the look I was going for, but it works. Best of all, it is ridiculously easy to maintain. I vacuum it at least once a week and wipe up spills. Other than that, I have only washed it once in over a year. I know that sounds gross, but nothing sticks to this stone! I have wiped tiles down with a white paper towel and found not a speck of dirt on them. It just stays clean, and when there is dirt on them, you can't see it anyway due to all the variations in the stone.

Sorry, but my best pic that shows the true color of the flooring has some "obstacles" in the way...

Well, after 3 trips to the tile store and lots of living with pieces the last few days and not feeling that any thing is quite "IT," I woke up this a.m. with this clarity: I really want the look of slate - in fact, I want rmlanza's slate (!) (and your DOG TOO, as the witch in the W of Oz would say...) - but I still have hesitations about dealing with slate so what I REALLY want is THAT look, in a porcelain tile. Which I can't seem to find.

Big thanks to jejvtr for the lead on the Continental Slate, but the piece we brought home just did not blend with everything else. Big shout out to all y'all's gorgeous travertine (gorgeous "obstacles" too) - I must admit, I'm having a moment on that one, but i just think I need to go darker to contrast with the very light, unstained and uncarmelized natural bamboo...and to balance the dark wood ceilings. I wish I could get it together to download photos...maybe later.

Anyway, Fin1- where ARE YOU?? If you see this, will you tell me the name of your porcelain tile that "even the installers thought was slate"?

And rmlanza, can you tell me what kind of slate you used (in case I end up going that route?). Thanks again all.

Thanks momo...my slate was ridiculously inexpensive to boot! It's just 12x12 natural multicolored slate from Lowe's. I searched for so long to find the perfect terra cotta for my kitchen and then we completely changed our cabinet (from dark cherry to maple) and countertop (from light granite to dark) choices the night before we HAD to order. The terra cotta just didn't work with our new choices (it made my maple cabs look pink). So we hastily chose the slate because I fell in love with a slate mosaic backsplash and figured having the slate floor would be "safe". I absolutely LOVE this floor!

And my doodle thanks you for the compliments! holligator, I don't know how you deal with 3 dogs that size!!! Beautiful obstacles you've got there.

OK that's it - I guess I'll have to take that long trek to Lowe's to check it out - the woman at the tile store told me if you drop a heavy pot on slate it will crack - I guess you haven't had that problem? Anyway, glad you love it and thanks again for the info.

Well I'd think if you dropped a heavy pot on just about any tile it might crack? I really don't know but obviously that hasn't been an issue for us yet. I've dropped plenty of stuff on it though, including large cans of food and a rubber mallet...it may be the luck of the draw but it didn't even chip. Oh, and if it did chip, it wouldn't be all that noticeable!

Which came first? The color scheme or the dogs? They all match your kitchen so perfectly...LOL!

I've got multicolored slate like rmlanza's. I love it. It does not show dirt which is actually a problem because I forget to wash it as often as I should. I use a floormate wet/dry vac as it shreds spongemops. If you go with it, make sure to overbuy by a lot because the less expensive brands will have a lot of tiles you won't like. Wash them well in the driveway and then sort them into 4 or 5 color piles - light colorful, light dull, medium, dark colorful, etc. so that you will get a good checkerboard. If there are any sharp edges you can just scrape them down with a paint scraper.

Make sure your installer has worked with slate! I cannot stress this enough.

I haven't found a tile I like better then slate yet either. I was told I would have to add 1/2" plywood over my 3/4" plywood plus 1/4" concrete board for slate or any real stone floor. Did you guys with slate and travertine have to add the 1/2" plywood?

I have a bathroom done in travertine and it has to be sealed once a year. I am sure this would need to be done on a kitchen floor as well. I would be concerned about stains from spills and grout staining as well since it's so light colored. We love it in our bathroom and should have considered under floor heating at the time of install. Yes it's hard but not any harder than any other tile. Good luck.

So here's the latest - visited a new tile store today and fell in love with some slate - that is to say, REAL slate, which truly is what I've been wanting all along. The saleswoman there convinced me that it's not harder to deal with than porcelain (which is also what I'm learning here from you great folks...) and I really like the natural feel of it. Plus it's about half the cost of the porcelain I've been looking at!... as mom2reese said, it goes really well with the bamboo in terms of the natural elements of both.

Wish I had the energy to take photos of it with the bamboo, etc. and download - but I don't. It's been a long day after a couple of long weeks, which I am sure you can all understand...

hillblazer, I'll ask about the adding of plywood. Thanks for mentioning that, and I'm curious how others respond...That's an interesting question I haven't come up against yet...

Thanks all again and again!

hillblazer and momo:
That adding plywood "trick" is a way to "fix" the issue of deflection. It doesn't work and no real tile setter would do this.

Here's the scoop: For those with the standard floor joist system, they have to be aware of the flact that their floor will bend/dip to a certain extent when weight is applied to it. How well constructed your floor is will determine the amount of bend aka "deflection". There's a formula that you can use to determine the amount of bend that you have.

calculator here: http://www.johnbridge.com/vbulletin/deflecto.pl

Since tile is hard, if you have too much deflection it will crack and break. Natural stone tile tends to be a bit heavier and significantly more brittle / prone to breaking than ceramic and porcelain, so you need a stronger floor underneath.

If you are on a concrete slab, this is a non-issue.

I know so much about this because we researched it thoroughly for our house as I really wanted a slate floor. Our house was horribly built using a joist system that has gone out of favor. Without adding support, our floor bends too much to have stone tile - especially in our kitchen which is in the center of the house with the least support.

BTW, the only way to fix this issue is to add more/better/stronger joists and or supports.

Here is a link that might be useful: More talk about deflection

Well as I said, we are over a basement and I have no idea how thick our subfloor is. The installers screwed down that cement backer board stuff and then installed the tile on top of that, did not add any extra plywood.

Can't wait to see your slate choice momo! My favorite thing about my slate is all the different textures (some are ridged and some are perfectly smooth) and all the colors (some are almost gold while some are more purple-ish).

I will see if I can find the name and manufacturer. I know it is an Italian Blue-grey porcelain . The tile size is 24x12.

momorichel,

This link...

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/flooring/msg111929187136.html

...will take you to the thread that shows "mondragon's" slate floor which is the inspiration for my kitchen flooring project!

Monodragon, I'm a little worried about this comment though... "Make sure your installer has worked with slate! I cannot stress this enough."

Can you elaborate on this? We are hoping to DIY this so now I'm a little worried that maybe we won't be able to handle it?

hi, I have used the slate from Lowes which has alot of bumps and uneven thickness, but for a kitchen I think I would go with a honed slate or quartzide. (they are flatter, and thus easier to clean) I really liked the copper honed slates and was almost going to use it for the kitchen.

If you go with stone make sure you address the deflection issue, if you have a basement below, it is very easy to address this by adding extra lumber.

Once again, I am sooo impressed with the knowledge level of people on this forum! Wow - pbris, you really did your homework!

Fin1 - I wonder if what you've got is Casa dolce Casa, is that right? I have that in my bathroom and LOVE it, beautiful, easy to clean, and it's greeny-blue-grey and looks a lot like real slate - but it's ceramic. It's not right for our kitchen though, and quite a bit more expensive than I want to spend (sigh).

Meanwhile, I'm still loving Taj Rose slate - but BOTH my GC and floor installer are trying to warn me off slate for all the reasons we have already discussed (uneven, flaking, etc...), so I'm in a bit of a quandary, but my gut and this forum has me moving toward the slate!

How about Bill Vincent, the "resident" stone guru - are you out there and want to chime in on slate as a kitchen flooring option??

Thanks again all.

mom
To get bill V do a separate posting "calling Bill V"
You could cut & paste this link to the below link box or just ask him ?'s

good luck

My research was selfishly inspired. I really, really wanted that slate floor but we wanted to make sure we did it right. We're DIY as well. I searched and searched to try and find a way to do it (with no luck in our case, unfortunately). I share what things I know to help others out as there's a lot of misinformation out there, just as I hang around here so that I can learn more about the things that I am doing / want to do.

So DH is now on board with slate! - he was hesitating, but tonight he wet it down and saw how gorgeous it looked....that said, it made us think again about the sealing issue. I read mondragon's highly detailed thread about her process - very informative - so now my question is: How often do you use that sealant? Does the "wet look" that it gets that brings out all the colors stay for a while or does it fade?

As to the deflection issue - we do not have a concrete floor, and I know there is some unevenness/sloping but I am not knowledgeable enough about these matters, so will ask our GC and the floor guy.

Thanks again all.

We did find a porcelain tile that we like. It is the natural line by Roca tile. It is a little pricey and we still like slate better. The floor guy came out yesterday to take a look. Will see what he has to say.

hillblazer: I don't know if you're in a hurry for the floors, but fastfloors.com has pretty good prices - the turnaround might not be fast enough for you, and although they have roca, i am not sure if they have the exact one you're looking for.

we are still undecided and need to order by monday to stay on schedule! Good luck to us both!

I'm always surprised when I see Continental Slate by daltile mentioned as a slate alternative: to me, it isn't even close. The texture is too uniform and the color range so narrow-- it's a great tile, and if the color works for you, it's a great look-- it just doesn't look like slate.

Surface Art has a much 'stone-ier' color range and better texture in their 'Canyon Slate' line. Really beautiful, but sadly not a solid body-- it's a glazed porcelain.

We have quarry tile throughout the kitchen-family room-entryway. It's bullet-proof. 30 years and no chips, dings, or stains. (Don't drop anything breakable on it, though. Even a tomato dropped from a countertop literally explodes.)

But O my hips and ankles after cooking dinner! Is there a relationship between one's youthful comfort on hard flooring and one's aging body's need for a more comfortable surface? In the upcoming reno I'm planning to lay down cork or something like that in the kitchen section.

We had travertine and hated it. It scratched extremely easy. We will never put it in our house.

Sorry-- I've stayed away from this thread because any time I answer something like this I'm told I don't know what I'm talking about. Slate is fine for a kitchen floor. No problem whatsoever. If you don't care for the mild shaling that will occur over the first 6 months or so, use a strong slate like Vermont or Brazilian slates.

Honed travertine will also work, so long as you're aware it's not going to stay pristine. But because of the fact that it stains easily, I try and steer people away from it. as a high traffic flooring surface.

It might be too late, but....

I only sealed the floor when it was installed, I used a couple of applications of a Miracle 511, a version that was available at HD. After a while I wanted it to look less "dusty" so I put down a coat of Mira Matte. It's been a couple of years and it's still looking great. The only issue is that it doesn't show dirt so you really need to clean it on a schedule, not when it looks dirty.

It sounds like you found your perfect slate floor, but I wanted to chime in about a porcelain tile I'm getting that also resembles slate--it fooled my contractor! It's from Italy and I believe it's called CTC Leonardo Nero (black). We're getting the 12 x 24 tiles with light pewter grout (I'm picking this up from the order form). Anyway, it's supposedly commercial grade so it should be extremely durable. I think I'll get a rug to put by the sink as it's a bit harder to stand on than my previous floor.

We ended up going with a porcelain tile that is now fully installed and we are very happy with it. It resembles slate but has - what is for us - the perfect combination of consistency and irregularity - it's greenish-brown/gray and goes beautifully with our kitchen. We ended up putting it in the entryway as well, which leads into the kitchen, so it made sense to do. It's Italian and it's called Casalgrande Padana:

http://www.classictiles.net.au/italian-floor-tiles.php

When on the site look on the left hand side in the 2nd category down called Granitogres Rusticato and click on Natural Slate. Ours is the slate green.

Thanks to all of you for your input. It was a tough decision, as so many of them are, but I think for us, we landed in the right place. I am planning on slate for the hearth - I still love it!

momorichel - coming in late to this post, but if you see this could you post a pic of your floors installed? we are looking for a very similar product and would love to see the finished product. thanks!

Hi Kerrygw,

I'm going to post two links and because I do this rarely, I hope it works:

http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo231

http://i379.photobucket.com/albums

Of course the pictures don't do it justice - I keep meaning to take more, on a sunny day, but I haven't gotten around to it so here's something to go on. Let me know if you have questions - we really like the floor so far! It doesn't show dirt at all, which is actually a little scary cuz I don't see a need to clean it except vaccum.

momorichel, your links didn't work. :(

Put your cursor over the photo you want to share from your Photobucket account and you will see a box pop up directly below your picture (see example below)

Click your cursor inside of the box labeled "HTML Code". Once you click inside the box you will get a yellow box that says "Copied". Paste that code in your message and it will show in your post.

Good luck (cause I really want to see your floor!) ;)

SOrry - trying again, and thanks to tootie for helping me through!

One more, which I think is a more accurate showing of the color - and of course, our favorite model is in it, although none too happy about the changes....

momorichel - that looks terrific! thanks so much for posting the pics, i'll have to add yours to my list!

Chiming in late...I'm currently researching floors and I've seen some beautiful ones mentioned in this thread that I'm checking out. My question is that at least two people in this thread have cited tile sources that are located in other countries(CTC, Casalgrande). Looking at their websites there is no "enter your zip code to find dealers in your area" feature so I'm wondering if some of you ordered your tiles from another country. It seems like the shipping charges alone would eat you alive. Did you find a local dealer to order the tiles or what did you do?

bluemoon:
we bought ours at a local dealer, Tileco - I think they're a chain, but maybe just in California? Anyway, it wasn't an issue - too bad the company doesn't make it easier to find. I am sure the shipping from Italy would cost a fortune. you probably thought of this already, but you did you try google and see if it comes up on fastfloors or ebay or one of those??

FYI - we're thrilled with the floor. It changes color depending on the light, which is nice. Doesn't show dirt at all, to the point where it doesn't occur to us to wash it, and so far I don't find it hard on my body to stand on. Then again, I don't tend to spend hours in the kitchen at a time, which might make a difference.

What a wonder site and thank you to each one of you for your contribution. We are avid DIY'ers and done floors from hardwood to ceramic and porcelain, but never slate or any other stone or marble.
The picture I posted (hopefully the picture posts properly) is of a portion of a home we did in a porcelain tile that mimicked a natural stone wonderfully and we considered using this same porcelain in our present home, but I've now seen a travertine tile that amplifies exactly what we loved about this particular porcelain so much and I can't seem to shake it. Even the cons that I've read I feel are worth accepting because this travertine is so beautiful. Can anyone tell me........if you seal the floor as instructed and you were to spill something (say some pickled beet juice), but wipe it up reasonably quickly, will it STILL stain??? Also, we have shied away from using hardwood under the dining table area because we are afraid of it being scratched from the chairs regardless of the fact that we have pads under the legs - does anyone out there have experience with travertine under their dining table and did / do the chairs scratch the flooring?
I am truly attached to this travertine and really hope that we can make this work, but if it really is NOT practical, then the logical side of me will dictate that we do not use it (sniff, sniff) and perhaps we'll use the same porcelain we used before.
One more question though.......I've heard that travertine can be sealed and then a finish can be applied that will give it a nice gloss (similar to a glossy porcelain tile) now is this true and does anyone have experience with this? The "flat" finish on the porcelain tile was probably the only thing that we didn't care for about it as we do like a gloss although I would probably forego that too for these travertine tiles. BTW.......we think the most beautiful thing about the travertine is the highly irregular patterns and colouring as the background is basically a mix of bright white and creamy white, the striations and streaks and lines and "blobs" of rusty orange, gray and even a bit of maroon are unbelievably BEAUTIFUL !!!!

Hoping someone has some recommendations. I'm looking for an inexpensive, good quality porcelain slate in dark gray / black.
Does anyone have suggestions? And if anyone has used Daltile Continental Slate are you happy with it? Finally, I'd love photos of any installed porcelain slate if anyone cares to share! Thanks!!

A nice glazed porcelain tile. Easy to clean, never needs sealing or special stone cleaners, can take lots of traffic, mopping, etc. There are so many beautiful porcelain stone look tiles today that are very hard to tell from real stone. Just don't use white grout if you don't like scrubbing grout. I know there are those who will say, "oh my white grout is easy to keep clean" and that may be true. But a darker grout is still going to show less dirt than bright white. I put a beige grout in my kitchen floor and I am so happy I did. I did white in my bathroom, never again. Spent lots of time scrubbing it on my hands and knees with a toothbrush but I am getting too old for that, we'll be tearing it all out and replacing it with new tile and a nice gray grout. Can't wait. It is easy to fall in love with things that look great but require a lot of maintenence but the older I get, I realize that I don't want to spend all my time scrubbing grout, or sealing stone, I want something that looks good and is easy care, call me lazy I guess.