Firstly, I know nothing, so apologies in advance..
I'm wanting a classic Victorian / Edwardian look for my kitchen-dining room floor and am thinking about a diagonal chequerboard pattern of 15cm tiles, possibly with some sort of simple border.
Now, there are companies such as "Original Style" selling expensive tiles specifically as "Victorian". They have a glossy brochure with lots of attractive pictures of floors that look very classy, some of which are just simple chequerboard patterns of square, seemingly unglazed tiles. The cost of these tiles ranges from £65 to about £100 per square meter however..
I could get 15 cm "quarry tiles" for about £20 - £30 per square meter in reds, browns, black, greys etc (some brands I have seen are Gres Aragon, Richmond, Cava, Dorset Wooliscroft etc). What I'd like to know is if these would look much the same as much more expensive "Victorian" tiles, or would they be more rustic and/or plain-looking? When I see original, old Victorian tiled floors they seem to have a slight gloss to them or at least the tile finish looks very smooth and fine-grained, and the expensive modern tiles (in the brochures at least) seem to have a silk-like sheen. Do quarry tiles usually have a more matt and rough-edged finish, or is it just down to the way they are laid?
What I don't want is for the final effect to look like the floor of a 1980s hospital kitchen or swimming pool changing room.. ;-) I'm just not sure if so-called quarry tiles tend to look like that because of the way they are laid (usually in a single colour with wide grouting lines) or because they just always look like that..