I did black paint ( oil based ) thinned about 2 or 3 to 1 with turps , dabbed on with a brush , 3 or 4 coats leaving at least a day between each . Used a brush , dabbed it on . The place was for sale , and it looked good . But funnily enough , I drove past that place a few weeks back , and it would be 5 years ago now , and it looks like its still there .

If theres somewhere out of sight , get maybe 500mls of black ( or whatever colour ) and a 5 ltr of turps, and give it a try .

Slate is very porous before it's sealed with a clear sealant. I wonder how painting it would work once that has been done? That said painted tiles always look like painted tiles as the grout gets covered as well, painted wall tiles are a good example to look at, don't do it

Thank you for your responses. Good idea Pottsy might try that on a small hidden area first.

Siriuskey, I agree it is not the best look but I am just checking if anyone has experience making it look decent. If not we will probably just wait till we can afford to fully remove and retile the area.

I agree with some of that -- the tiles I did you could tell they had been 'stained' if you looked at them , but it helped sell the place presumably , and I'm not being picky , but they actually didn't look 'painted' IMO -- it did look like the thinned out paint had soaked in , if that makes sense . Regrouting may have taken away some of that look too ( I didn't ) , but basically they looked 'clean' , whereas before they looked unloved . A slight difference was mine were charcoal before , a dark charcoal afterwards ( the black soaked in so it went part-way between the two ) .

Also I doubt if mine were genuine slate , but they weren't those flat smooth tiles either -- there was a definite 3d type ripple across the surface , but they were all cut to 300 x 300 , and as they had been laid by a previous owner , I never lifted them to see exactly what they were .

Anyway , take it for what its worth -- if the only other option is to lift and replace at a cost of a few thousand , then trying a bit with $25 of materials , or the whole thing with $200 worth , might still be worth a try ?

Oh I see what you mean, the charcoal would definitely be easier to cover up than these hideous orange ones I have haha...but yeah it is definitely worth a shot I think anything would look better than what they are at the moment. If we did paint we will definitely regrout, I am sure that would make a huge difference. We don’t move in for another 4 weeks so if we do go with the paining route I will definitely post back, just in case anyone else is looking to do the same.

Pottsy would you suggest I also use black paint or another colour closer to the tile colour?

This would look nice, but I don’t know if it is possible to get it like this.

Do you know if the slate has recently been resealed, I know it won't change the colour but by just resealing Clear. will give the tiles a big lift. Apart from that these tiles are fairly easy to lift from experience a builder who wanted our tiles used a long handled small sharp spade to run under them, didn't cost us anything and he had a lot slate tiles for his home for free