The lovely pink and gray bathroom in EarthaKitsch’s 1956 house has a gaping hole in the vintage mosaic ceramic floor tile, courtesy of a previous owner’s need to get to pipes underneath. Eartha K is a longtime reader… remember when I wrote about her delicious knotty pine kitchen? Now, she and DH putting finishing touches ont he bathroom but Drats! They need to fins some tile to match. I volunteered to marshall the Retro Renovation readership forces (and the retro decorating gods) on their behalf. Read on for Eartha K’s story…
Hey Pam,
Thanks SO much for offering to show our tile to see if anyone can help. We’ve scoured your blog and looked into all of the tile manufacturers listed and have also paid a fee for a service to search their warehouses for dead-stock portions of our tile. No luck. We’ve also been watching Craigslist and eBay like hawks to no avail. We just KNOW that somewhere out there, someone has some of our tile sitting in a dusty shed or is about to rip it out of a bathroom. We had a tile person come out to the house, and he said that there is a slight chance that he can harvest some tile out of our bathroom linen closet but that since our tile is laid straight onto concrete, there might be more loss than gain. We found some fragments of our tile in a trash pile in the brambles at the edge or our property but there is no maker or other info on the back of them. We recently saw our tile in an estate sale house so we know that it wasn’t something rare.
So, that’s the scoop on the great (or not so great) tile hunt. The colors are a peppy (and kind of Pepto) pink and a sort of blueish gray. The sizes are 1 x 1, 1 x 2 and 2 x 2. I’m attaching photos and will also attach a photo of the patch job that was done sometime in the past. Our house is on a concrete foundation and we’re guessing that someone had to get to the plumbing through that hole in the floor. Then they slapped some random tiles in haphazardly and called it a day. I never will forget the day that we first walked through this house. We went into that pink bathroom and angels started singing because everything was original…pink…pink…pink.
…glorious. Then the realtor said, “There is something under the rug that you need to see…” When we lifted up that rug, we gasped. Then we bought the house. We’ve worked hard getting the bathroom spiffed up and rejuvenated with repair work and by bringing back some period details … but that hole in the floor keeps us from being able to say that our job is done. It haunts us.On a comical note, when we finally found the perfect color of bath rug to match our bathroom, we drove all over the county from one JC Penney’s to the other, snatching up all of their stock because they were being discontinued. I have this fear of being in this house for 50 years and all of my bath mats getting too ratty to cover the hole in the floor anymore. Thus, I have become a bath rug hoarder. : )
Thanks again!
What do you think, readers? Can you be on the lookout at Re-Stores and craigslist and the like and if you see any New-Old-Stock, post an alert here? Meanwhile, I have a few more sources for new tile today that might do the trick. I will post them tomorrow and Saturday.
Gricelda says
I came across this on Instagram and I have those exact wall and floor tiles in my house. Did you ever find someone who had same tile. Savannah GA over here.
Mike says
lift up the toilet or door saddle (harvest original tile from there)
if anyone knows where to get the base cove tiles this size…(in white).
please let me know…
mR
(restoring a 1940s bathroom w gray tiles/ same design)
Trouble says
Don’t know if this ever got resolved, but I visited Hamilton Parker here in Columbus, and they said that they could color match any tile, as long as they have a sample. Should be a snap, but IDK if there’s a certain qty. that needs ordered?
Troy Henley says
Here is the simple fix, a repair that will make it look original again.
Like taking a swatch of carpet from a closet to path the carpet stain in a large room….same scenario: Have a tile pro carefuly remove a 12″x12″ section of tile under the sink, box in the sink with a cabinet to cover the scalped spot (and gain some additional storage space at the same time) then use those tiles to repair the middle of the floor. You’ll never find a match with the tile and and an artisan latex match of the existing tile will look acceptable at best and will wear differently than the other tile, you’ll have an obvious giant patch unless you perform the fix by relocting original tile.
Julie says
Hi,
I know I’m a little late to the party, but I too have a pink and grey bathroom from 1959. In ours, someone tried to take out some tile and made a mess. But amazingly, I found at least 2 boxes of original Dal tile in grey and pink. The pink was never used in the house, so I figure they were planning to make a border and never got around to it. The grey is not all one shade of grey and I think it may be a different mosaic design, but maybe you could use it to piece in your missing pieces. Let me know if you have found a solution yet! By the way, DO NOT remove that sink for any reason! I have a master bath with that exact same sink in yellow and would not trade it for the world!
Eartha Kitsch says
Hi Julie,
Sorry that it took me so long to see your note! If you see this and it’s okay with Pam, please drop me a line through my website (just click on my name and then use my “Contact Me” link at the side. If the colors match up, maybe we could work a deal to get a small section of them? We’re still looking for tile for sure. Thanks so much!
p.s. I am with you on the sinks. Love them!
pam kueber says
I need to add a “Subscribe to these Comments” form at the bottom of each post — will upload my request to the tech team right now!
Eartha Kitsch says
Hi Ceren,
Oh, exciting! Please click on my name and once you get to my website, contact me through my “Contact Me” link over on the right side. I’d love to talk to you about your tiles!
Sounds like you’ve got quite the project going on too!
-EK
Ceren says
Hi,
I am not sure if you hav fixed your bathroom floor yet, but I have the same exact tile in my bathroom!!! I had to replace the shower pan and the plumber couldn’t save the tile in my shower stall so I have chunks of the floor with the concrete still on the back of it. I have been thinking that when I get done with the restore of my home I would find something amazing to do with them. Please let me know if you finished your bathroom. Maybe I can send you some chunks and you can work it out.
In the meantime, if someone knows where I could find the cove pieces in that pink, also wall tile in the same color as in the picture, that would be great!
I am trying to figure out what to do with the floor of the shower – right now it sits unfinished until I find something that is a great match!
Sara says
I’ve just re-done the bathrooms in my recently purchased 1960’s home. Coincidentally the bathrooms had pink and grey tile!
While they’re not mosaic, they may be the right color, and with a tile cutter you may be able to cut them to size. Are you still looking?