What is this 1920s flooring?

[TattiePants]

We discovered this flooring in the porch about 8 years ago when we took the old carpet up. We have 2 front doors and rarely use this one so it’s been pretty much forgotten about but I’m now so bored that I’m working my way round the house doing odd jobs. Could it be Terrazzo? How would I clean it up - it’s very dull, probably has 100 years of ground in dirt and has carpet glue round the edges? Should it then be sealed?

My parents have the same in their porch area but their house is 1960s. Are you sure this is 1920s? My 1920s porch has terracotta quarry tiles.

It’s terrazzo.

Yes it's original to the house (1922). I noticed some of the Victoria terraces round the corner have this as their paths.

How can I restore it myself? Google says not to use anything too acidic or alkaline.

Our house is Edwardian and has terrazzo in the porch. Pretty sure it's original. A theatre locally of around the same age has an original terrazzo floor in the foyer. You'd need to use something to remove old polish and dirt and restoration videos online show it being wet ground then polished.

Terrazo is a very nice original flooring. Hard wearing and hygenic in halls and litchens. If you drop a plate or glass on it, it will smash. Sometimes it may have patterns moulded into it. The stone chips and mortar will be damaged by acid cleaners. You can wet-mop it, or scrub if very dirty, and it can be polished. I'd put doormats down at least for protection.

The colours are brighter when it's wet or polished. Wet-mop it and you will see what it can look like.

Here's one of the floors in my old house

Unless you are very rich, you will probably find it impossible to repair or replace with matching.

@PigletJohn that’s one beautiful floor (and hall). So is there nothing I can use to try and shift the yellow carpet glue marks? If you look at the first photo there are circular marks along the black border. I think it would look better wet/polished. What product would I use? Many thanks

the glue might come off with a solvent cleaner.

We have horrible wooden flooring cladding in our hallway which is very tired looking. We only moved in just over a year ago and not done any decorating yet.
Our house is 1929 and I dream of ripping up the flooring and there being some amazing original flooring underneath!
My favourite are the Minton tiles but I know we're not really the right era for that.
Would settle for gorgeous parquet or quarry too.

@sundayfishfinger I’m on my third period property now and one of the first things I do is lift a corner of the carpets in the hope of finding a beautiful original floor. Unfortunately it still hasn’t happened! Fingers crossed for you.

We found an oak parquet floor under the living room carpet on the day we moved into our house.

PigletJohn that is a beautiful floor. I also love the curved shape of the bottom stair.

Hi OP, Terazzo - DSis has it in her 1920's home. She renovated and kept that floor - it really is a statement and makes the house. You should try to keep it if possible.

@wowfudge

Amazing- how old is the house?

It's Edwardian and arts and crafts style. We were literally jumping up and down when we viewed it, out of sight of the vendors, obviously.

As soon as I read your thread title I thought Terazzo. I had it in a lovely 1930s bay-fronted semi. The brightest it ever got was the patch where the cat had been sick and we didn't find it for a few hours - I guess the stomach acid cleaned up more than a scrubbing brush and Stardrops could. Not a technique I could really recommend, though.

@ThatLibraryMiss Stomach acid can be replicated with a 1% solution of hydrochloric acid. It's what we use at school and you can buy it online