Calling All Travertine Floor Homeowners & Experts
Would love to get some input from people who own travertine floors in high traffic areas and of course any “Pros“ out there. We purchased a home in May that we are currently renovating. It is time to do the kitchen area. When we purchased the home the first thing we did was get rid of the old, dated Berber carpeting and replace it with beautiful dark wood floors (real wood). We did the dark wood everywhere except for some of the high traffic areas where the home currently has beige porcelain tile. Those areas are: the kitchen and open concept family room right off the kitchen, as well as the hallway that leads into the kitchen from the garage. I love continuity in flooring in an open concept floor plan (which is what we basically have) but when we put the wood floors in, we decided not to bust out the existing tile due to expense and the mess of pulling tile out.
We are now ready to update the kitchen and have discovered that many of the tiles in this area are missing grout and have come loose. After talking to our contractor it sounds like we might just need to put new flooring in in this area after all.
Our home has a beautiful “Santa Barbara” feel to it and that is the look I am going with inside the home as well. I prefer natural, elegant, and rustic as my design elements. I now have 3 choices: continue with the wood flooring into the family room, kitchen, and hallway; go with with travertine (which I love); or choose something more durable but maybe less stylish like a porcelain tile.
Taking the wood flooring into these areas is a no brainer from an aesthetic standpoint, but I am worried about putting wood in my kitchen for all the obvious reasons. I love the look of travertine, but I am aware of how porous it is and I’m wondering if anyone out there has used it in high traffic areas, and has real life experience with whether or not it really does stain that easily if it is properly sealed? How often does it have to be sealed, etc?
We are mostly empty-nesters, but I do have two adorable twin grandsons who are two years old and are into everything LOL. I don’t want to have a home that I have to treat as a “museum“ when they are over. We have one small dog who doesn’t require too much maintenance. That’s about it. Even though I don’t love the current porcelain tiles that we are looking to replace, one thing I will say is that it’s nice to not have to worry when my dog drips water all over etc.
Sorry for the long post, wanted to give as much info as possible. Thanks for anybody who is willing to give input!
Comments (14)
Patricia Bell
4 years ago
PROBeth H. :
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoI've had (notice the past tense lol) and still have, travertine. I had the beige kind in my old bathroom. I wouldn't put it in a high traffic area due to cleaning issues and if you get the honed and filled type, it just doesn't last. little chips show up here and there.
I have Silver Travertine in my large living room. Versaille pattern. ( i only have an older pic because right now i'm in renovation mode) .
That has actually held up pretty good. no issues, but then again, no one w/shoes ever walks in there, and it's not a high traffic area.have you looked at porcelain in more of a rustic feel that you like? there are hundreds to choose from. I suggest you go to a large tile store and see what they have. porcelain is so much easier to care for. any of the natural stone tiles means sealing periodically and cleaning w/ stone safe cleaners.
Tilebar has this 24x24 porcelain that looks like limestone
they even have porcelain that looks like old brick or terra cotta. (they make them larger)
Related Discussions
Calling all hardwood experts
Comments (5)Black Walnut is more affordable than you might imagine. I found Hurst Hardwoods has a pretty darn good price on it. I got a sample of it, but settled on quartersawn white oak instead. There is no advantage to using random widths, other than the look. It does look really nice!!! If you want more stability, consider quartersawn walnut. Quartersawn boards are much more dimensionally stable and more resistant to cupping, although they do cost more. Here is a link that might be useful: hurst hardwoods...See MoreIt begins... calling all layout experts.
Comments (3)Mateo, assuming the kitchen were left there, I would not be interested in extending it into a very long space down the back wall of the house. One thing I would strongly consider would be setting the refrigerator, partly or entirely, into the wall at what is currently drawn in as the laundry room. The shallow counter shown there in the new design would be worthless to me because I'd never work there, so I'd never put it in, but I very much like the idea of a wall of floor-to-ceiling shallow storage, anywhere from 8-13" deep. I have that kind of storage now, which I copied from a previous home because I loved it. It holds an amazing amount of stuff in a very accessible way, and almost nothing in a kitchen is too big for a 13" shelf, or 12". BTW, you can also borrow 3" or so of depth between studs for storage. The refrigerator could be set into this, using the rest of the needed space, again, from the laundry area. Is that little knee wall at the bottom end of the current kitchen counter supporting anything? I see the door outside on the other side of it, but if the kitchen stayed there, the only extension I would be interested in in that direction would be into the door areas, which would be shoved down 2 to 3 feet.. OR. :) More ambitiously, but maybe well worth the investment would be addressing a larger area in the remodel. One thing that strikes me is that the space labeled "dining" seems way too small hold a table and chairs and be a corridor into the kitchen. If it's not somehow great for you, I'd consider extending the kitchen into that space as far as the bedroom hallway and putting a dining/socializing banquette in the back corner where you're contemplating a clean-up center. This plan would leave the back door right where it is--no extending the counter that direction. I might choose in this case to extend the bedroom hall wall the depth of the kitchen counter on the other, living room end, to hide mess on it from the living room, and then widen the doorway to span the rest of the space between that main work counter and garage/laundry wall. Traffic could then come around that corner, cross in front of the refrigerator (which might still be set into the back end of the laundry room), and end up at the banquette. Of course, this version would require moving doors to laundry and garage, and there might be too much involved in that (like where's the plumbing?), but why not have the garage door enter much more directly at the area currently labeled dining, or through a different part of the laundry room, instead of requiring people to go the long way around and demanding the layout and fucntions of all those spaces give way to the needs of traffic? Moving those doors would be a big problem solver, improving your entire home; and if means allow, doing anything else would probably be a mistake. That done (without that door from the garage in that back corner), a really nice, spacious banquette could be set in there, with seating for several enjoying the window and door to the outside and with a nice cozy relationship with the cook at work. Of course, the things I don't know mean some of this may be ruled out immediately, but hopefully something will jog an idea that will work for you. Unless you have a critical need for a counter to cool several sheets of cookies at once, though, I'd strongly suggest at least ditching the shallow counter in favor of even shallower wall storage plus the refrigerator set in. Note that any counter area would be right where your very best shelves could be, right in front of you without reaching up or down. Have fun....See MoreCalling all paint experts!
Comments (6)Depending on the color you're starting with, I would go buy a can of the base, untinted, or a lighter base even. Then, I would get out my little paper cups and start mixing to see if I could come up with something I liked. I use a baking scale to try to keep the proportions roughly accounted for. If you can do a 1:1 mix and be happy, then you might be able to get away buying fewer new cans and you won't have three gallons of Wrong sitting on your shelf. Of course, if it doesn't work, then you have three gallons of Wrong and one extra can of base paint. This method tends to work better with the neutrals. Dark tan goes to light tan = not so bad. Red goes to pink = bad....See MoreCalling all wood flooring experts: brass inlay in engineered wood??
Comments (14)I understand your inspiration, what inlay are you actually wanting to use? The inlay in this picture looks like it is inset into the wood flooring . Almost like they routed (sp?) the item into the board after the boards were installed. If the inlay is set to go around the edges of the floor where walking is less likely to occur, I wonder if you can select a different style of inlay. Something that is not flat but is rounded maybe? that way the inlay can sit slightly above the wood and minimize some of the gaping. It is hard to make a judgment on this as we do not really know all the details. I am wondering if Schluter has a product that could offer a solution. Attached the Schluter catalog link below. Might be worth checking out. I do think that for what you want you are going to have to make some concessions. Do you want to pay the labor for someone to perfect the cut edges of the wood? Can you tolerate the imperfections for this look? The final solution is the one you'll be able to live with and be within budget. Either way that is a beautiful floor! I hope you keep us posted. https://sccpublic.s3-external-1.amazonaws.com/sys-master/images/hd9/h5a/8916622573598/Profile%20Brochure.pdf...See More
PROFlo Mangan
4 years ago
Patricia Bell
4 years agoHi Beth, thank you for taking the time to answer and for the photos. The biggest thing I dislike about porcelain tiles are the rectified edges that have a super straight edging. My current tiles actually have non-rectified edges which make them look a lot more like natural stone. It’s very hard to find non-rectified porcelain tile these days! I really don’t care for the uniformity of the square tiles with perfectly straight edges - I like a softer, natural look. The last photo you posted -the chevron pattern - is very interesting and I will take that to one of my local tile companies to see if I can find something similar because I could really dig that!
Photo of my current tile:
Patricia Bell
4 years agoPatricia Bell
4 years agoPatricia Bell
4 years agoPatricia Bell
4 years agoPatricia Bell
4 years agoPatricia Bell
4 years agoPatricia Bell
4 years ago
PROJAN MOYER
4 years ago
Skippack Tile & Stone