Just uncovered some old floor tiles in my hallway - help!

[JessesGirl]

My house is mid-terrace, built in about 1900 from what I can make out. The hallway is very long and narrow and extremely dark. A couple of nights ago I decided that I was fed up with my depressing dark hallway with its dark blue carpet tiles (put down by HA and I have always despised them) so I had a look underneath and found the most beautiful original tiles!

Only problem is that the tiles are in two parts, hopefully the pictures are clear enough (will add them in a separate post). The part with the gorgeous Victorian (?) tiles looks in quite good condition and probably just needs some elbow grease to clean them up. The other part however is not so good. There is black paint everywhere that has been there for God knows how long!

So, can anyone help me out? How do I get these tiles looking their best and how do I stop the hallway looking so odd with two completely different tile patterns?

The cellar is very exciting! How big is it? Did you find anything interesting in it?

Greencheese It's pretty big, I'm planning to eventually use part of it as storage and the other part as a sort of snug/den-type room for my DCs so I can reclaim my living room I think it has only been boarded up for about 15 years so nothing too exciting, although there was a set of alloys down there that I have just sold on eBay for £150 That said, I haven't had much of a chance to go through everything because I need some actual light down there!

That's fab, I'm now jealous of your pretty tiles and your new found cellar!

It's so exciting isn't it!

I used HG products to clean up our Minton floors and seal them. My BIL used Lithofin products. If I had the money I would have them done professionally as I love how glossy they look when they are wet, and 2 boys + scooters + Minton tiles are not really a good mix