Ask most people to describe a tessellated floor and they’ll describe the middle of it. But a heritage floor is really four separate design decisions stacked together, and the middle is the least important of them.
Understanding how the parts fit is the difference between ordering confidently and ordering twice. It’s also what lets you describe your existing floor accurately enough for a supplier to match it — which is usually the hardest part of a restoration.
The anatomy of a tessellated floor
Every traditional layout is built from the same four components.
The field
The repeating pattern that covers the main area. It does the least work per square metre and takes up the most space. Fields are usually two or three colours and are laid either square to the space or on a 45-degree diagonal.
The border bands
The frame running around the field, made up of one or more parallel bands. A band might be a single row of plain colour, a narrow row of small squares, or a patterned run such as a key or chain motif. Bands are stacked from the outside in, and the number of them is the strongest signal of a floor’s era and ambition.
The corner blocks
Where the border turns, it needs to resolve. Corner blocks are purpose-made units — sometimes a mitred continuation of the pattern, sometimes a distinct decorative square, occasionally an encaustic tile with a floral or geometric motif. They are the most distinctive element of most floors and the hardest to source.
The infill
The small tiles that fill the gaps left by the primary shapes. The classic example is the little square that sits between four octagons. Infill is easy to overlook when you’re photographing a floor, and easy to under-order.
Get the field wrong and the floor looks slightly off. Get the border or corners wrong and it looks like a modern floor pretending.
The patterns you’ll actually encounter
Heritage floors were catalogue products, not bespoke designs. A handful of layouts account for the overwhelming majority of surviving Australian floors.
Square on square (chequerboard)
Alternating squares in two colours. Simple, robust, and the most common layout in the country. Usually laid on the diagonal, which makes a narrow hallway feel wider and disguises minor out-of-square walls. Typically red and black, or black and cream.
Octagon and dot
Large octagons with a small contrasting square at each intersection. The workhorse of Federation entries and verandahs. It covers area efficiently, reads calmly in bright sun, and turns corners without drama.
Hexagon
Honeycomb fields in two or three colours, sometimes arranged into a flower or star motif within the field. Common in bathrooms, small porches and secondary spaces.
Basketweave
Pairs of rectangles alternating in direction, often with a small contrasting dot at the junctions. Reads as woven, works well in medium-sized spaces, and suits either era depending on the palette.
Star and cross
Interlocking eight-point stars with cross-shaped infill. More elaborate, more Victorian, and more expensive to lay because there are more cuts and more components.
Diagonal field with banded border
Not a pattern so much as a strategy: a plain or two-tone diagonal field, framed by two to four border bands and decorative corners. This is the format that most often reads as authentically heritage, because the interest lives at the edges where it historically did.
How to describe your floor to a supplier
Suppliers can match almost anything if they’re given the right information. Most enquiries arrive with a single wide photo and nothing else, which is the least useful thing to send.
What actually works:
- A wide shot of the whole floor, taken from a doorway or standing height, showing how the field meets the border on all sides.
- A square-on close-up of the field, shot from directly above with a tape measure lying in frame.
- A square-on close-up of the border, showing every band from the outer edge to the field.
- A square-on close-up of one corner, which is the single most useful image you can send.
- Measurements: the dimension of each tile shape, the tile thickness, and the overall size of the space.
- The back of a loose tile, if you have one — maker’s marks from Maw & Co, Minton Hollins or Craven Dunnill make identification much faster.
Shoot in daylight, avoid flash, and wet the floor lightly if the tiles are dusty. Colours read very differently on a dry, chalky heritage floor than they do on a clean one.
Setout: why the same pattern can look right or wrong
Two floors can use identical tiles and identical patterns, and one will look original while the other looks approximate. The difference is setout — how the pattern is positioned within the space before anything is fixed.
Three rules do most of the work:
- Centre the field, not the wall. The pattern should be centred on the space so that cuts at opposite edges are equal. A floor with a full tile on one side and a 20mm sliver on the other looks wrong even from across the street.
- Set out from the most visible edge. On a verandah that’s the front edge facing the street. On a hallway it’s the threshold. Push the compromises to the least visible boundary.
- Resolve the border first. Border bands and corner blocks are fixed dimensions and can’t be cut without showing. The field absorbs the tolerance, not the border.
Any competent heritage tiler will dry-lay the border and corners before mixing adhesive. If yours doesn’t, ask why.
Working out what to order
Tessellated quantities aren’t a single square-metre number, because the components are priced and supplied differently.
Field tiles are ordered by area. Measure the space, subtract the area the border will occupy, and add wastage — 10% for a square field, 15% for a diagonal field, because diagonal layouts generate more cuts at every edge.
Border bands are ordered by linear metre. Measure the full perimeter of the bordered area, then multiply by the number of bands. A 10-metre perimeter with three bands is 30 linear metres of border, not 10. This is the calculation people most often get wrong.
Corner blocks are ordered by unit. Count them — and remember that a return verandah or a stepped edge has more corners than you think, including internal corners that may need a different component from external ones.
Infill is ordered by unit or by area depending on the supplier, and it’s worth over-ordering. Small tiles are the ones that break during handling and cutting.
One more thing worth doing: order roughly 5% extra of every colour and hold it in the garage. Heritage tiles are fired in batches, and a batch matched five years from now may not be an exact colour match. A small box of spares is the cheapest insurance in the whole project.
Choosing a pattern when nothing survives
If the original floor is gone entirely, you’re designing rather than restoring. A sensible sequence:
- Fix the era first from the architecture — that narrows the pattern and palette options substantially before you look at a single tile.
- Walk the street. Terraces and bungalows were built in runs by the same builders. Neighbouring houses of the same age often had near-identical floors, and several will still have theirs.
- Pull the palette from the house. Two colours from the brickwork, roof or leadlight, then one or two supporting tones. Cap it at four.
- Choose the border before the field. Decide how much weight the edges should carry, then pick a field that supports it.
- Check the scale against the space. Large modules in a narrow hallway look sparse; small modules across a wide verandah look busy.
If you’re in a Heritage Conservation Area, a photograph of a neighbouring original floor is also the most persuasive thing you can put in front of a council heritage advisor.
Frequently asked questions
Do tessellated tile patterns have official names?
Not consistently. Names like octagon and dot, basketweave and star and cross are widely used, but individual suppliers also apply their own catalogue names to the same layouts. Dimensions and photos matter more than names when you’re matching a floor.
Can I have a custom pattern made?
Yes, since the tiles are geometric components rather than pre-printed designs — any layout that resolves geometrically can be built. Bear in mind that a custom layout on a heritage-listed property may attract more council scrutiny than a documented historical one.
How wide should the border be?
It’s proportional rather than fixed. As a rule of thumb, a border reading between roughly a tenth and a fifth of the width of the space tends to sit comfortably. Narrow hallways carry proportionally wider borders than large verandahs.
Do I need corner blocks?
If the border pattern is directional or figurative, yes — without them the pattern collides at the corners. Plain banded borders can be mitred instead, but purpose-made corners are almost always the better result.
How much wastage should I allow?
Around 10% for a square-laid field and 15% for a diagonal field, plus extra on small infill tiles. Order about 5% additional of each colour to keep as spares against future batch variation.
Need a pattern identified or specified?
Send us photos of your field, border and one corner with a tape measure in frame, and we’ll identify the pattern, list the components and tell you what to order.