So I’ve jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and now I’m looking for some friends! Fellow bloggers and tweeters, where are you at? I’ll be cruising around a few houseblogs in the near future since I usually just read my favs via google reader…but anyone reading this who wants to start tweeting with me, I’m looking forward to talking at you soon! I’m still learning and not really the best at keeping up to the moment with it…but I’m addicted so that has to say something about it.
If you Twitter and want to maintain multiple accounts at once (like myself), try out twhirl.
nice job, you guys been doing 🙂 i like your somewhat unconventional approaches to the repairs you had to make.
couldn’t help but notice, the bad condition of your terrazzo steps…how about the floor with the logo did you fix that?
That is a difficult problem you got there, i think the terrazzo will keep on cracking…normally i would suggest cutting joints into the surface to allow the terrazzo to work, but it seems to me that in your case you do not have a specific solution. It pretty much has to do with whatever is under that floor. Still…joints might be the only thing that will prevent the further appearance of more cracks.
Guess what, i make terrazzo 😉
PS. as for the cracked step, make a good pic and post it here…it’s fixable
Hi,
No, we haven’t fixed our terrazzo floor in the entry way yet. And yes, our steps outside are in rather bad shape also. We think outside we will just replace the steps all together at some point with sandstone that matches the base of the house. We want to have a bigger porch by the front door anyway which would solve that issue at least. But until we do get it, we bought some patching solution. It will be noticeable but at least not falling apart. I will post another photo tho and get your input before we go to that trouble!
Thanks for stopping by and offering your help!
And as for the floor in our entry way with the logo – a local guy who also used to work with terrazzo told us to go to a shop near us and get the stone chips we’d need to fill in the holes. The floor seems to have shifted a bit more during the winter as well and the front door is dragging a bit.
What’s underneath? I can’t say with certainty but I think it’s mostly suspended on beams…most of the wood floors have sand insulation pockets underneath but I know there is some crawl space under those.
hmmmmm…tricky it’s difficult to make a good suggestion without having a proper look at that floor, especially underneath. The good thing about terrazzo is that it possible to restore it without incurring the costs that other materials would originate. The problem being that on a flat surface that is in the process of “working” joints MUST be placed to prevent the cracking. To restore it to it’s original glory all you really have to do is to re polish it, i also saw what you wrote about buying the corns at your local store (lol) first tho i would suggest the following, mark a square on the floor of 10cm x 10cm and identify the aggregates inside according to size and color, then you count them in order to get the proportion, like X number of big yellow stones to Y number of little black stones, then you buy some comparable stones and using a kitchen scale you weight the stones, X number of big yellow stones= Z grams and Y number of little black stones = Z grams now you have the proportions of the mixture you have on the floor, the next thing and most important is the color matching, and for that you have to cast a few samples let them dry and then polish and compare. Once you got that you’re in business, and can restore the floor to it’s original glory.
As for the steps, BEFORE you patch it make the pic! and i will give you step by step instructions on how to do it, it’s not difficult, and if you do some lil magic, those steps will look “grand” like new and no need to change anything really…just think about it…if i would do those steps i would probably charge you around 2.500 to 3.500 EUROS (just for starters) so that is what you would be throwing away 😉
But no worries my advice is free, that is why i remain anonymous. I’m not German, I’m also an ex pat, but from Portugal, been in Germany now for a year, I have a German Fiancee and she does not want to move to Portugal so here I am. Not everything is about money all tho many in Germany would disagree 🙂 it’s a lot of fun to be helpfull to people too so…there you go.
try to find out whats under that floor, and if you can make a pic
as for the door, is it a wooden door? if so it’s probaly wet from the winter, and it’s nothing to do with the floor itself, normally the floors tend to sink instead of raising. So check it for signs of cracked paint, or underside chiping or flaking of the paint.
now i go call the trash company to find out why did they not take MY trash 🙁
WOW! Thanks again for the great tips…I’m definitely going to need to print this out so I don’t lose the details!
It’s quite cold and rainy here this morning (was even snowing earlier!) but I will try to post a new photo sometime in the next few weeks and we can discuss further if you’d be so kind as to keep up with us!
Your fiance doesn’t want to move to Portugal?!? Terrible. But you’re a champ for giving up all that to come here! And of course for sharing your knowledge with us!!!
Are you working on a house yourself or just living through others who are crazy and doing renovations themselves? 😉
Speak with you soon
Tiffany
well the trash company did not like a broken porcelain plate and a pineapple on my trash…weird…now they come again just to collect my trash…no comment!
anyway, it’s sunny where i live, close to Osnabruck, all tho it was snowing yesterday.
Well to answer your question, i’m living through other people renovations 😉 but it’s on the cards to buy some old house an renovate it myself, i guess you could say that I did quiet a few before, and I love extreme renovations.
I am sorry but i had to laugh, when i saw the Italian counter tops on your Ikea kitchen, I would never would have come up with that, you actually added class to Ikea furniture, my hat is off to you.
And you really got to be either crazy or totally desperate to attempt something as drastic as to mount an Ikea kitchen by yourselves .
I can build almost anything, but last time i tried an Ikea kitchen cupboard i almost ended up in the funny farm. It was like building a Space Shutle with instructions in an obscure Chinese dialect.
lol Don’t get me started on trash here…it can be crazy, indeed. And every city is just a little bit different.
To be honest, when we did the kitchen we were sort of in a rough spot. We could have gone with a MUCH more expensive kitchen, spending 2-3 times what we spent with IKEA, and still would have had trouble finding something in the style we wanted. IKEA happened to have one of the only farmhouse-style kitchens we liked and we’ve had one before which held up pretty well so we went for it.
We will absolutely NEVER assemble one again ourselves. That was definitely a nightmare. The instructions could have been in Braille as far as we were concerned. We have quite a few pieces of IKEA furniture in our place and consider ourselves to be quite handy with them…but that was terrible. We basically didn’t have much choice though in the end…we needed to get the kitchen done so we could start moving in…and since IKEA screwed up so many other aspects of the order, we were just happy to get everything together finally. But no, definitely never planning to assemble a kitchen again – EVER!
are you going to leave the “green” bath in place? is that your only bath tube?
i know i’m partial to terrazzo, but i would implode it,lol, mostly because of the shape, you always have the choice of casting one yourselves.
lol we are leaving the tub in there for now. It’s fantastic for washing our dog in and we never use bath tubs anyway, just the shower. We would like to cover the tile at some point to update it…and will probably redo the floor tile at some stage also.
The terrazzo from the entry way actually extends all the way into this bathroom as far as we can tell…now wouldn’t that have been quite the combo in there?
But yeah, that’s not too high on our list of priorities. The green makes it kinda fun and it’s a million times better in there without the wall tiles…
that did sound a bit dry…sorry not my intention.
i quite like the color and the tiling, and it does give that toilet a certain “quelque chose”
i like your idea of having it with flowers and candles 🙂 specially if you have people coming over that will for sure add a certain atmosphere.
but the comfort for a bath…hmmm.
do you mean that the terrazzo goes to the door or that it actually goes inside?
i think you will be pleasantly surprised once you have that terrazzo polished and shining 🙂
maybe you can try instead of removing all the tiles just some strategically placed mosaic combined with the green tiles and the shape i think it would work
You’ve probably seen the photos but we only have the beige floor tile and the small green tiles on the tub now. The toilet is new (and white) as are the sink cabinet and so on. We chose a dark colored wood cabinet which goes quite well with the green and brings out some black accents in them.
The terrazzo appears to be in the entire bathroom floor. It at least goes several feet in to the bathroom because took out a built in cabinet when we moved the bathroom door and there was no tile in the bottom, just a nasty piece of carpet. And there is another door in the bathroom which leads down to our basement and you can see a bit of terrazzo there as well. We can’t be certain if the terrazzo extends throughout the entire bathroom, though, without starting to take up the tile.
I’m sure the terrazzo will be quite beautiful when it’s polished. When we mop in there it already brings out a lot more of the orange and red colors in there and it looks much nicer. In this post you can see all the various colors: http://ournewfarm.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-terrazzo-entry-hall.html
yaiks ! i did not know you could click the pics.
MY diagnose…from far away.
-first i call your attention, to the crack that starts at the door where the shoes are and comes around the red color of the star. The reason the crack has followed the red color and made that circular contour is that due to the difference in the mortar for the white stones of the border, and the red terrazzo, the contour acted like an expansion joint, and the crack merely followed. This means that the cracks you got are mostly because the “job” was made by a “shoemaker” instead of a real professional.
your floor is missing the expansion joints all around that allow the terrazzo to work. White Portland cement reacts for up to 50 years after being cast, and all tho the first 28 days are the most important the fact is that contractions and expansions WILL happen over time.
Solution- Repair the cracks and create expansion joints around the walls, this basically means making a cut into the terrazzo,(i think 3mm should be enough) all around the room to separate the terrazzo from the walls so as to make the terrazzo “free” from the house 🙂
The cut will then be filled with silicone, (black would go well with the colors)
On further inspection of the photos i also see that the terrazzo was poorly polished at the time of casting, which leads to all subsequent polishing to default as consequence.
Solution- Rent a wet polisher(after repairs are finished and enough time for drying allowed) and do a first coarse polish with a 100 stone, then move up to a 300 stone, 600/800/1200 and it will look like the all thing is a single stone just cut from the finest bedrock in paradise. 🙂
as for fixing the cracks…
i need you to drill a hole in a crack not too big but enough for you to be able to measure how thick is the terrazzo. As for the aggregates i do not think you can buy them locally, but i will have a look to see if i got some look alike stones, that yellow is difficult… you need just a few kilos, like 5 or so…
when you drill the hole to measure the terrazzo i also need you to check “what” is it that is filling the crack, it looks like Grey cement, maybe Portland, that will have off course to be removed. I think you can do the joints yourself, but I’m not sure about the cracks….it depends if you settle for a repair that will look good but will show a different shade where the cracks were, or if you want a professional to do it for you. should you choose that i can probably ask a few people i know if they can refer you to a good and cheap company near you. I don’t know anyone near you, in Munchen, Hamburg but not near you i’m afraid.
well i hope it helps…now i go watch DR house.
Hmmm, ok well the polishing seems easy enough…and I imagine we may give the repairs a try ourselves when we get to the point of taking on this project (not a clue when that is at this time) if we can find the materials. We’ll still check with the local supplier here just in case since we need to order a step from him for outside our kitchen door anyway.
Thanks very much for your GREAT advice. There is definitely no one else online giving any sort of information like this because we’ve looked a few times when we were just thinking over our list of projects. Most people tell you not to even think about repairing terrazzo yourself so I’m quite happy to see that we may indeed be able to make something nicer out of it.
I do think it’s cement of some sort that they’ve used to fill in the cracks – a crime in and of itself!
Hopefully when we get to start on this project you’ll still be around and perhaps we can pick your brain again!
Thanks again for all the input!! You’re fantastic!
I just wanted to follow up on this comment with an email I got from Mr. Anonymous:
“Geee you praise me way to much…
(blushing like a college girl)lol
The reason you do not find anyone giving you this sort of info online IS: Terrazzo is a bit like the Templars, the ones that do it do NOT give out it’s secrets, for there’s a lot of money involved.”
I’m posting the comment for him since he requested that I omit part of his comment – and I certainly want to honor his wishes after all the information he’s shared with us!
If you want to contact me outside of blogger, please feel free to email me at txblond at gmail dot com (edited to throw off spammers…)