can you use wall tiles on the floor of a fireplace?

[Reastie]

As in the floor bit around the fireplace (forget the term for it).

We have ceramic wall tiles in our bathroom and are having the floor redone. It's floorboards and we're having ply and then lino put down. The area around the fireplace is awkward as it raises up so we can either keep the area around the fireplace open as it is (it's victorian and a stone base but we've tried sanding it and it will take alot of effort to look not that great), paint it black (DH dislikes this idea), cover it over completely with lino (which will give un uneven floor in this corner and lessen the life of the lino) or put tiles around the stone to give an original ish effect.

I like the latter idea best, and we've got some left over wall tiles (ceramic, original style like this only different colour/design which we've had cut to size for DH to put around the fireplace but we're worried they will break when trodden on. Where the fireplace is, people wouldn't easily tread on it, but I can't guarentee no one ever would, and we're worried they'd break.

3 questions really

1. would this be OK to do or is it flashing red lights for a terrible idea?
2. is it likely to break? (dh says it doesn't matter if they do, we'll just put lino on top of it (which will look AWFUL)
3. if it did break, how hard would it be to take them and the grout off to get proper tiles to do?

Wondering whether to just buy some tiles to do it which would work on the floor, but worried about costs as everything is getting so expensive

Are you saying there is currently still a real stone hearth? If so I'd just keep that exposed. There are cleaning products to remove staining but I'd expect a Victorian hearth to look stained.

Yes it is but I've tried to remove the many layers of paint etc but it won't all come off and looks awful (this from someone who love s original features)

What about real stone or slate tiles which would look more original? I assume it's not a big area so maybe you could get a discounted lot.

Are you intending to use the fireplace as the hearth needs to be made of a non combustable material of a minimum thickness (I can't recall how thick) with a clear boundary between that and combustables. So tiles over lino probsbly not. Lino absolutely not.

LE no we won't use it. I'm glad you agree with me re: lino not over!

nemno we are looking at stone tiles but we don't want to pay alot to have it cut to size so looking for a size which we could cover the front with which fit to the size. That's not actually as expensive as I was worrying as it's only a small area.

this one we could get to fit the space perfectly (although it's a bit boring)