It’s no secret that our home is an ongoing project, and one of our main goals is to restore or reinstate as much of its Victorian aesthetic as possible. Due to heavy restructuring in the 1990s by previous owners, many of the period features have been removed (we’re working on that) but the exterior remains more or less the same as it did almost 140 years ago! Not only is this amazing, but it also means it has become a little scruffy looking over the years, particularly for the likes of the exterior.
Over the 2020 lockdown period, I needed a project that I could work on whenever the kids were asleep, and I decided to tackle the front of the house. (A list of everything used can be found at the end of this post, if you’re interested.)
What needs to change on the front path?
To the front of our house there is a porch with tiled flooring, connected to 3 stone slab steps, and followed by a footpath of the same material. At some point, the tiles and stairs had been painted red but this has started to weather. Gaps have formed in between the stonework over time which sometimes causes water leaks into the cellar below. All of these elements were from the original building work in 1886 so we want to preserve what we can. Sadly, the more I tried to remove the red paint from the tiles, the more they deteriorated so stripping them back wasn’t an option. However, I do believe there is little that paint can’t hide.
Equally disappointing, the flagged path has cracks in it, so ultimately we will look to replace (or cover) these eventually, but for now, a simple refresh is required to see us through the next few years whilst we save up.
Preparing the Victorian front path
1. Seal the gaps
Before the pretty stuff happens, we need to fill the gaps which are letting rain into our cellar. We used a no-fuss exterior filler before starting on the work.
2. Even out the surface
When stone steps are in heavy use they naturally dip over time. Not only have ours dipped but in some areas there are chunks which have chipped off. In order to restore the surface a little, we started with a layer of BAL bond SBR which is essentially a primer for better adhesion of building materials. It dries clear and shiny like a PVA glue and can give a good surface to add cement to. We whipped up a batch of cement ourselves and used a trowel to skim this over the surface. I’m not very good at this I’ll admit! But thankfully, I’m good at sanding which came next.
3. Smooth & scrub
Naturally, this can leave the surface feeling quite rough and uneven so we then sanded the whole surface with the Makita orbital sander. This helped to smooth the new cement, as well as remove any flaking paint from the tiles or steps. A good scrub with soap and water came next, and it was then ready for paint. I know, I know. It looks way worse than when it began! But trust me when I say this is far better than what we started with.
How to paint Victorian floor tiles
Create a base coat & tape off the squares
I started with two coats of Sandtex Ultra Smooth masonry paint in white all over the steps and tiles to create a base. After all the prep work, this went on beautifully and took barely 10 minutes. Then I taped out the squares for my pattern. I decided that the smoother terracotta tiles would become blue, and the rougher stone tiles would remain white. For best results, I used the ProDec Precision Edge tape as it’s a low tack tape (meaning it shouldn’t rip off any paint underneath it), and it’s incredibly lightweight meaning it’s easy to manipulate into straight lines.
Paint your edges for a crisp line
I learned this trick from the fabulous BanyanBridges – when you want to get a really crisp line using making tape, make sure that your first coat is the same as what’s underneath. This way, when the paint inevitably bleeds, the base coat will act as a barrier to your colour of choice, making for perfectly straight lines. It’s genius! In our case, this meant painting all edges in white before going in with the blue.
Paint your colour of choice!
Finally, the fun bit! I chose this fantastic shade of blue which in some lights looks purple, and in others a slate colour. It’s Juniper Ash by Little Greene Paint and it’s beautiful, especially against the white. I did 3 coats in total over the relevant squares, as well as on the top of each stone step. I believe 2 would have been sufficient but I do believe that whenever you’re working with masking tape, it’s usually better to do more thin coats, than fewer thick ones.
Leave the paint to fully dry and then remove the tape. This is truly the best bit, peeling back to reveal those crisp lines!
Touch up & rest the paint
Thankfully, I had no paint bleed, but due to the age of the tiles, there were still some chinks in the stone which made the lines look less straight than I’d painted! I’d also not accounted for the grout so some squares didn’t quite touch where I’d wanted them to. Just to make the finish a little more legitimate looking, I touched up with a fine artist’s brush. Then, I propped up a “wet paint” sign to ensure no delivery man trod on my masterpiece. Whilst masonry paint dries quickly, allowing the paint to fully cure for at least a full day will mean a better finish.
Shopping List
If you’re interested in any of the items we used, here is a list where you can buy them.
- Multi-purpose filler
- BAL Bond SBR Primer
- ProDec ATMT001 Advance Precision Edge Masking Tape
- Sandtex Ultra Smooth Masonry Paint in Brilliant White
- Juniper Ash – Little Greene Paint
I’m absolutely thrilled with how it completely transforms the front of our house and is a lovely nod to what many properties of this era would have looked like. Doing this paint job during lockdown also meant that I got to chat away to my neighbours as I worked which was all kinds of lovely. You may notice from the images, that I’ve also painted the front door in Juniper Ash, and if you’d like to know how we learned to paint our PVC door, then click through to read all about it. Happy painting everyone!
