One of the big pre-baby projects on my to-do list was to replace the carpets in all the bedrooms, since they were all worn, faded, and cat stained. And extremely stinky, especially in the room we want for the new nursery. Underneath these carpets was the original terrazzo flooring from when the house was built. If you don't know what terrazzo is, basically it is chipped marble in concrete. Shiny, cool, and very easy to take care of. If we could at all afford it, why not pull up the stained and badly grouted tile in the rest of the house, and do terrazzo throughout? We pulled up the carpet in the guest room and the terrazzo seemed to be in good condition, so it was worth getting an estimate anyway.
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| The original tile |
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| Unpolished terrazzo, after removing carpet |
I met with a local terrazzo company representative. He assured me that the tile would come up easily and the terrazzo would polish up well, and that they would also apply a dark brown stain to our family room floor, which since it was a later addition was the only room lacking terrazzo. I pointed out my pregnancy and that I worked from home over the internet. I asked if there would be any dust or fumes generated in the project - he said absolutely none. I asked if my husband and I living in the house during the project, with the cats, would be a problem - he said absolutely not. I asked how long the project would take. He said that the stain would take about two days to dry, so they would do that room first and work on the rest of the house while it was drying. So it would probably take three days total, maybe a day or two more if there were complications. We agreed on $3500 to do our whole 1200 square foot house - breaking up the tile and removing it, polishing the terrazzo, and applying the concrete stain in the family room.
Day one, I met with the single workman who showed up, and found that the project was NOT going to go the way it was explained. The technician said that they can't do the stain first, they have to do it last. Why? Because polishing the terrazzo creates dust. Lots of dust. Enough that he spent most of that first day shrink wrapping our upholstered furniture and taping plastic over the clothes in our closets. A second worker showed up the next day, and using just hammer and chisel they managed to break up all the tile in the house and sweep it away. However, they also tested some of the stain, so that I could pick a color, and it REAKED. The fumes were so bad, I spent the rest of the afternoon outside, and made plans to board the cats and stay at a hotel until the project was finished. Which would be only a few more days, right?
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| Cleaned up and ready for polishing |
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| Shattered tile, with terrazzo underneath |
Over days three and four, they use the terrazzo polishing machine and worked on filling the little holes left by the carpet tack strips. Finally on day five they applied the stain in the family room. Which took two full days to dry - the one thing that the representative I spoke to at the beginning was actually accurate about. The project began on Monday and I had been led to believe that it would be done by Wednesday or Thursday. It actually wasn't until the following Sunday, double the original timeline, that we were able to move our furniture back into place and get the cats from boarding. I'm positive that we'd stayed in the house, as we'd originally planned, the project would have taken at least another two days longer, as the technicians worked around us and left us access to the bathroom and the kitchen. Altogether, we spend an additional $1100 on hotel, food, and cat boarding. When I called to terrazzo company to complain, they agreed to refund us $110 for one hotel night, but that's it.
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| Concrete stain in the family room |
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| Pretty polished terrazzo |
When we got everything moved back into the house and arranged, I was pleased with the appearance of the terrazzo in the main part of the house, and that it would be so easy to clean - just mopping with warm water. But there were signs that the workers did not have especially high standards. In many places, the terrazzo machine made long, deep gouges in the baseboards, which would have to be sanded and repainted. In the family room, when they applied the stain to the floor they were not at all careful with the walls. The stain was splashed up three and four inches in most places, with the occasional smear at waist height, so we'll have to repaint that room too. We also found out, after the fact, that you can't polish certain stains out of terrazzo. So in the nursery, there is a shadowed area along one wall, where cat urine had soaked in. In the bedroom, where apparently the old carpet had a green padding underneath, the terrazzo was stained a much darker color than in the hallway. When the workers repaired holes in these areas, they used the same terrazzo fill as in the unstained areas of the house, which stands out quite obviously against the stained terrazzo. And I'm still finding chalky terrazzo dust in my cupboards and on the walls.
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| Line of demarcation from bedroom to hallway |
Now that it is all said and done, I am glad that I have my terrazzo floors. But I wish that I'd gotten more in writing from the company in the beginning, so I could hold them to their promises. If I'd known we'd have to stay in a hotel, I'd have waited to tackle this project until I could more easily afford it. I didn't find much on local terrazzo companies online. This company had only one review and it was a positive one, so I had thought that we'd have a better experience. I'll be writing my own review on Yelp - that's the only form of retaliation I have open to me.
