We got stone

Good bye concrete: the kitchen finally got its stone floor.

At first we were surprised that after spending so much time with the people at the quarry, choosing with them exactly the colour that we wanted, they delivered something that seemed so much darker.

But the stones were beautiful, and the colour, though darker than expected, still went very well with the other variety of stone used for the walls of the house and with the old oak beams. So we resigned ourselves that we could live with it and would not test the quarry's return-and-refund policy.

In the end though, we did get the colour that we wanted: two days after they had been laid, once the stones were dry through and through, the paler, creamy tone that attracted us originally emerged after all.

We had been told that stone, even hard stone such as the Limeyrat variety, was a porous material and darkened considerably when soaked for cutting and finishing. We just didn't expect such a contrast.

Though the jointing remains to be done (tomorrow), and a good cleaning will have to follow, the floor is beautiful.

Below are some pictures taken over the last couple of days. The difference between the freshly-laid stones and the ones that were laid the day before is striking.

Day One

The stones on the left were laid last yesterday,
while those on the right were laid the day before
and are now thoroughly dry and showing their "true" colour.