The house we have just moved into has the original tomettes in the kitchen / dining room. They are well laid and even but are very dirty and stained.
I was thinking of scrubbing them with bicarb mixed in water, then rinsing. Maybe a hand a knees bit of work on the worst of the stains. Then huile de lin after they are clean and dry. But I could be well wrong. Any ideas on how to make them look good again?
Thanks
I suggest you see how your idea works on a sample patch.
Imperméabiliser des tomettes avec de l'huile de lin - Carrelage.
If it doesn’t shift the stains you could try looking at amazon.fr where you’ll find loads of products for cleaning/protecting tomettes.
We recently laid new tomettes in a fireplace. For protection, to bring out the colour and make them look less rough, we used STARWAX Lait de Brillance pour Tomettes / Terres Cuites.
Hi Fleur, thanks. They are lovely just incredibly grimy after goodness knows how long of use. I’ve swept loads of times and taken the hoover to any gaps to drag out the worst of the dirt but now it’s tie to get a bit serious with them. You are right, I’ll try on a patch in a non too obvious place and see how it goes, then … Thanks for the idea about looking at amazon.fr for products and the idea of STARWAX too
Just to say I have used Starwax products for many many years and have always found them very good, cost a bit more than other makes but worth paying for.
I had a few chips in my tommettes and with the help of a bit of google fu, I bought some mixed bottles of nail varnish from noz (cheap as chips) mixed a few drops to the nearest matching colour of the tiles, cleaned the chipped area with my dremel drill, filled in the chips to level and they are hardly noticeable, not perfect but better than chiselling a full tile out, then having a new tile contrasting the old tiles. still good after 3 years.
Good idea! Quite a few of our tiles had tiny white dots, from the fabrication process I guess. I happened to have a sample tin of terracotta paint, so using an artist’s paint brush I touched up any white areas that caught my eye. You would never know.
How about a sisal or nylon brush in the cordless or corded drill. Angle grinder and stainless wire brush might work as well. Sane the knees and elbow grease.
We used Star wax lait de brilliance and it worked very well for making it look nice when we rented. Actually we used Carolin rouge for tomettes first let it dry then starwax. They are now completely sealed and no impervious to liquids but looking shabby. I have my floor polishing machine with various pads so will give them a scrub up next trip. I was going to go over some with my orbital sander to see if they come up more natural. Word of warning with huillr de lin, makes the surface lethal until dry and lethal again if anything is split
I did wonder about the lethal slipperiness of huile de lin so I think Starwax is probably the way to go. Have used Carolin before and it is good too