Historic Slate Floors in Evanston and Elmhurst: Restoring Without Erasing Character
By Granite Heroes Team · 2026-09-04
Older Evanston and Elmhurst homes often hide original slate floors under decades of wax and grime. Two recent projects show how slate is cleaned, stripped and refinished while keeping its natural cleft.
Slate shows up in the entries, mudrooms and sunrooms of Evanston's older homes and Elmhurst's Craftsman bungalows more than any other stone. It is durable and forgiving, which is exactly why it has survived — usually under many years of floor wax, acrylic "sealers" and ground-in soil. Two recent projects show what it takes to bring it back. Evanston: a historic slate floor The floor was original to the house, laid in a random pattern with wide grout joints. It had been coated repeatedly over the decades, and the build-up had gone yellow and was flaking in traffic areas, giving the whole floor a blotchy, dirty look no amount of mopping fixed. What we did: 1. Stripped the old coatings chemically, working in sections so nothing dried on the stone 2. Deep cleaned the slate and grout with agitation and hot-water extraction to pull out soil that had been sealed in 3. Repaired loose and missing grout to match the original 4. Allowed the floor to dry completely — slate holds water in its layers 5. Applied a breathable penetrating sealer with a natural-look enhancer so the greens, greys and rust tones came forward without a plastic-looking topcoat The natural cleft texture — the slightly uneven, layered surface that gives slate its character — was preserved. Grinding it flat would have destroyed what makes an old slate floor worth keeping. Elmhurst: a Craftsman slate mudroom Smaller space, same story. A Craftsman-era mudroom floor with dark, greasy build-up along the path from the bac