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.
six-20 says
Scope the neighborhood, see if any homes are being remodeled and ask if they are trowing out some time. If your house was built in a development odds are there is a house with you same bathroom and floor plan. I live in a huge ranch house built in 1953. A house a few miles down the road from mine (rural area) was built by the same builder. I noticed construction work going on and stopped buy at see what they were throwing out and scored a few boxes of tile that were identical to mine that i needed for repairs. Odds are you might not be that lucky but its always worth a dry. Also got some cool built in shelf units that i retro-fitted to work in my office.
Eartha Kitsch says
Tracy: Update – we got up to Bransford and had no luck. : (
Eartha Kitsch says
Tracy: Thanks so much! We’ve been meaning to get up to Bransford during their open hours. I agree with you that in-person is sometimes much better than online or on the phone. Congratulations on your original blue and white bath! : )
Vintigchick: Thank you! I love the color combo too. It’s more than we could dreamed of with so many original baths being ripped out in our area.
jkaye: Ha! I think that your grandparents must have known my grandparents. They kind of rolled the same way. : )
George: Thanks for the tip! We’ll check them out as well.
George says
Check Heath Tile as well. they may have or even be able to match it.
Good luck
jkaye says
I understand why you want to replace this big mistake,. But I have to smile when I look at it, because it’s exactly the sort of repair my “Papaw” would have made. And my “Mamaw” would have been just fine with it, and wouldn’t even have looked for a rug to cover it up. They had a classic response to anyone who was critical when they came up with such less-than-perfect repairs: “It’s JUST AS GOOD as what was there before.” I’m sorry I don’t know any sources for tiles, but, I am having some good memories of my grandparents, thanks to your floor!
Vintigchik says
I feel your pain! Hope you find something soon. I absolutely love your bathroom. Wasn’t the 50’s mix of pastels and grey just wonderful!! Good luck.
Tracy says
Yay for original midmod bathrooms!! I have one with blue and white tile. A guy is here reglazing our tub and sink as I type. I don’t really have any brilliant ideas for finding that gorgeous tile. I know a few people have mentioned Daltile. I might just go out to their location on Bransford Ave. with a pic of your tile and see what they say. In person always seems to work better for me than online or over the phone. At any rate, your bathroom is GORGEOUS!! Good luck finding the tile.
Eartha Kitsch says
Thanks everyone for taking the time to give me your ideas and resources. You don’t know how much we appreciate them! I promise that we will follow each and every lead and see what comes of them. Thanks to Pam as well for letting us put our little bathroom out there to see what happens.
We are definitely going to keep in mind patching that hole with something else, whether it is a brand new tile or harvesting tile from another area – but I think that I agree with some of you in that, since it’s right where a rug goes anyway, we will wait and see if the universe delivers for us before we do anything too drastic. I have to admit that the idea of a cute, kitschy custom design in the middle made me smile. The options are limitless!
We’ll also look further into custom tile matching and into the suggestion about the bathroom in the forum. That’s a good idea too to give the realtor at the other house our info in case the new owners decide to rip out the bathroom (I hope they don’t though…it’s sweet.)
We’ve looked into Daltile but I’d like to maybe speak to someone further and make sure we have the right info. You never know…A dead-stock tile company told us that our tile might be old DaltIle. Maybe we just need to get the right person to talk to. They might say, “I have some right here under my desk!” Stranger things have happened. : )
Oh! And good thoughts on getting the plumbing looked at first. I’d like to ask around and see if anyone knows what the issue was under there. Our plumbing is set into concrete foundation so once something goes wrong- that’s right…jack hammer..uggh.
Thanks to everyone who said nice words about the bathroom. We really appreciate it and your compliments will keep us going until it’s done. : )
Shen: Really? That’d be awesome! I’d love to talk to you about what you have. You don’t have any contact info so if it’s okay with Pam, can you e-mail me through my website? It should be connected to my comment here.
Heidi: I’ll let you know if I find anything like what you are looking for in my searches. Be sure and check Pam’s resources at the top of the page or search “tile” on the site. I found lots of resources to look into that way from older entries.
Millie: Oh my gosh! You poor guys! Sounds like you’ve been put through the ringer. I can’t imagine getting to that last corner only to see that the tile is missing. And my gosh, I agree with you about plumbers and jack hammers! I’d like to trade them in for vacations and spa visits! I’ll check out your link.
Amy Hill: A fellow bathroom supply hoarder! Ha! We do what we have to do..you know? : )
Tina: The bathroom rugs are the basic old shag kind in a color called Seascape. It’s the perfect aqua…not too blue and not too green. And of course, it’s been discontinued. There might be a few floating around out there though. They’ve also discontinued the towels in the same color. I admit that I bought up a slew of those too!
Ann: Thanks so much! I’ve been using that moniker for a long time now and I still like it a lot.
Jen: That sounds awesome! I’d love to see what you’ve got. Thanks!
Lorrie Blackwell says
I hope you already found your tile but if not check ebay they have a listing for the pink and blue gray listed separate. You can add the pink squares.
#280839456777 and #270927405430 The seller is mhavens2009. I hope you still look for replys here….
good luck Lorrie
jim says
There were several good suggestions…I would check out under the toilet or installing a vanity allowing you to use some tile under it. That’s going to get you the best match. BTW, the floors look spotless…do you hire out (to California???)
Jen Terman says
B & W tile is where I matched my pink bathrrom tile. … Also, they’ll make any size in any of their colors if they don’t have stock. Finally, they offer some colors that are not listed on their color sheets. …
I have lots of pink B&W tile left over from my bathroom renovation. It matched my existing original pink tile PERFECTLY. I live in Los Angeles (close to Gardena) and suspect my original tile is from B&W–they’ve been in biz for over 60 years. Gray tile, like yours, was the only other tile option when my Levitt-like neighborhood was built in 1952. I’m happy to send you one of my new pink tiles to see if it matches yours. If it does, there’s a promising chance B&W’s gray will too.
Otherwise, go for the flamingo tile panel option.