Slate floor..hate it hate..Any advice..?

[shhhh]

We has real state floor tiles fitted to our kitchen/family room around 4 years ago...Seemed a good idea at the time BUT even why the guy walked out of the door I hated them.

I didn't have the nerve to tell him and he left me to "seal" the tiles myself..the area is quite large so I managed 2 coats of sealant then got bored . Now I regret it..They always look dirty and never look nice..oh except when I have just washed them.

HELP. I keep telling dh I want to pull them up but he tells me its a huge job but that we will one day as he wants to replace them with nicer tiles iykwim.
I would even settle for lino over them as I hate them that much..

What can I do to improve their appearance..? Is it easy to seal them again as apparently the more they are sealed they shinnier they look...I think this is how I want them to look...
They are driving me oooppppppppppppppppppppp the wall.!

keep them, we'd have them again

we have slate on our kitchen floor we bought this to seal the floor, it looks great even though it gets loads of abuse from my two dirt magnet and dirt making daughters

Bosscat - Lifting slate is very difficult as it shatters because it is brittle and layered. You can do it, but it's quite labour intensive. You could probably tile over it, but you would lose about 1cm plus in height by the time you have new tiles plus adhesive which might cause problems with levels into other rooms and skirting boards. Plus, if they're natural slate, they may well be uneven because of the different thicknesses so it might be hard to get an even floor if you did tile over the top...

Can anyone tell me what type of polish you're meant to use? We might give that a go before the Ronseal varnish!!

as below...plasiplugs is what we used.

cant find a link but got it from b a q i think. this might be useful

www.tiledoctor.co.uk/Slate.html

oh... bum. Have a stack of slate tiles in the garage waiting to go down in the kitchen in the next few weeks. I refuse to believe that they will ever look worse that laminate with black dog hair floating across the top.

Well, I think slate looks gorgeous and would not change our floor for anything! Whether it's shiny or not, I still think it's beautiful, but it does depend on the look you want to achieve, I guess. We have green slate tiles on the walls in our bathroom and they are fantastic!

for a quick eoconomical solution, try Farrow and Ball floor paint? available to order in any of their colours, including archive colours. I used Cat's Paw, a lovely warm neutral. Worked a treat on a crappy old wooden floor. It goes on stone and concrete too...

11 years later I reckon she's either bought new tiles or moved by now...

lol I'm supposed to be cleaning mine now but saw this and had a read . I too hate hate mine but feel more positive after reading some love theirs albeit 11 years past .