The battens are laid out as seen below, before the limecrete mix can be poured and levelled around them. The battens are pressure-treated ensuring long service life. Unfortunately the battens were quite wet due to outside storage, so require some time to dry out.
The ground floor front and rear rooms (dining and kitchen):
The final floor level will be approx 20mm higher than the original floorboards, so the fireplace may been to be re-positioned once the boards are laid.
Moving on to the hallway:
Moving through to the ground floor of the return, I wanted to do something a bit different with the floor surface. I decided upon laying black limestone slabs instead of floorboards in this area, as they should work very well with the underfloor heating, will be durable and easy to clean around the back door area and are something of a nod to the large limestone slabs often found in grander Georgian hallways.
Approx 16 square meters of limestone slab was delivered to the house from Natural Stone Ireland, just outside Kells in Co. Meath.
I decided upon three different sizes slabs, a full size 600x600mm, 600x300mm and 300x300mm.
With no battens to lay, the slabs were set directly to the limecrete slab with a lime-based mortar to maintain breathability.
The hydraulic lime being used for the mortar mix:
The pointing has yet to begin, but will be completed once the mortar below the slabs has hardened.
Finally, i've been finishing off the first floor rear bedroom, after countless hours of stripping paint from the window shutter box and cast iron fireplace.
I'm still unsure of the finish I want to go with once completely stripped, whether to paint it once more or to try and get the original black finish back to acceptable finish. A good clean with white spirits and steel wool is the next task at hand.
And the shutter box:
