Slate Flooring

Overloaded Toyota - carrying a wee bit less than 1 ton of slate.

Fiftyfive boxes weighing 35 pounds each, 40 in the back and 10 inside.

The next decision is how to layout the slate.  I have always been partial to random patterns avoiding long straight lines.  My favorite is a Versailles pattern.  We had a similarly colored slate floor laid out in that pattern in a previous  house.  The problem is that the slate we bought only came in 12x12 or 16x16 pieces.  The Versailles pattern requires 8x8, 8x16 and 16x24.

Versailles Tile Pattern

After studying it for a while, I realized we could make a 16x24 piece out of one 16x16 and one 8x16.

Modified Versailles pattern.

 This adds an extra line which is not as elegant, with respect to the randomness of the pattern, but I think it is a good solution.  We laid out some tiles in the hall using masking tape to simulate the pattern to see how it looks.

A modified Versailles pattern dummied up with masking-tape to simulate grout lines.

I considered that a tile design breakthrough. You can lay out a modified Versailles pattern using only 16x16 tiles. Slate is soft and cuts easily. But now, it turns out the slate is so subtly nuanced that we almost hate to cut it. Here is it laid out in a grid. If the grout was dark it would look better. 

A simple grid pattern.

This is a simple offset pattern which still has continuous lines

An offset pattern.

If we were to go with the offset pattern (which I doubt) we'd want to rotate it so that the long lines do not run down the entry hall. The following view is from the side of the layout above.

Same offset pattern viewed from side.