The deVOL Journal

An Old Stone House With a New Porcelain Floor

19th January 2023

By Molly Cherry

Casting my mind back (quite a way) to the Summer of last year when I had the absolute pleasure of visiting a beautiful stone house near to Northampton. Myself and the photographers from deVOL made the short journey down the M1 to photograph a range of our porcelain tiles which had been recently laid in a brand-new kitchen extension.

Before I go on to talk about the flooring, I thought I’d introduce you to the beautiful house itself. The lovely, and very lucky owner, Mr Harrison, kindly invited us in to his characterful home full of original features and charm, and that was just the outside! On the contrary to the more traditional feel of the majority of the house, sat the newly built kitchen extension which offered a slightly more contemporary space. The large glass windows and beautiful sky lights allowed light to flood into this room making it such a light and welcoming space. Mr Harrison is a builder by trade and used to have his own property company in London but has now moved to the Midlands and started up his own business and is now a property surveyor. If you are in need of one, please check out his website, www.silverfoxsurveys.com . With Mr Harrison being a builder, it seemed silly to have the work done by other tradesmen so he impressively built the extension himself and what a wonderful job he did to really make the most of this space.

Onto the best part – the flooring. When searching for the perfect tile, Mr Harrison wanted a tile which had some character and didn’t want anything that felt too plain. This led him to choose our beautiful Polvere Ivory Porcelain which is the ideal alternative to natural stone. This tile still carries a tumbled edge and slight scuffs and imperfections, often found in natural stone only so really gives the impression of a timeless limestone whilst offering a practical solution at the same time. Over the years we have seen such a surge in popularity of porcelain tiles with it’s low maintenance qualities and often, lower price tag. Our Polvere Ivory Porcelain starts from just £46 p/m2 and is also available in a beige colour which is slightly darker and warmer. The delicate, pale tones of the Ivory option complements the deep blue tones of their shaker style kitchen perfectly, allowing for the right amount of light and dark. Keeping the floor light allows the natural daylight to bounce around the room and often gives the illusion that the room is bigger than it actually is. Luckily, Mr Harrison didn’t have to worry about space here. Porcelain has developed so much over years and there are now a much larger selection including; stone-effect, wood-effect and marble-effect to name just a few. We stock a very generous range of porcelain tiles to meet the needs of our customers which can be found here. 
Selecting a tile can often be a difficult but selecting a tile size can also prove tricky as it can have a real impact on the overall look and feel of the room. In this kitchen you see our opus pattern design, a wonderful mix of smaller and larger rectangles and squares which come together to create a visually pleasing pattern. The opus design is a well-suited option in a more traditional property where original tiles would not have been a regular size and typically would have been a little more higgledy-piggledy.
We were so grateful to have been invited into this lovely home and it was a pleasure to meet Mr Harrison and learn about the house as well as this project. If you have had a Floors of Stone floor laid, either recently or years ago, we always love to receive finished project images so if you have any, feel free to send these over to me at, molly@floorsofstone.com. I would love to see them and you never know, we may come to photograph your home!