Mirror tiles from the 1970s — 12 designs

Really, I am such a contrarian, anti-authoritarian, pain-in-it, yes I am. If I have any sense whatsoever that the design powers-that-be believe something is *hideous*, I will go out of my way to find a way to say that it is fantastic. Sometimes I think I can cloud my own vision. But not in the case of: Mirror tiles from the 1970s. My vision is not clouded, it is clear: These are so much fun. Life is short. Have A LOT of fun. And if you Go Too Far with Decorating — Heck, It’s Only Decorating. I recently went on the hunt for vintage mirror tile, and here is what I found, along with lots of artsy fartsy photos of two boxes of New Old Stock diamond coppertone mirror tiles that are now mine all mine *buwaha* or however you spell it evil laugh…

I got the idea to use mirror tiles when I began thinking about decorating ideas for my office/studio remodel. As regular readers know, I have become a bit obsessed with the 1970s. My office/studio will be My Hippy Place.

I don’t know exactly how mirror tiles entered my consciousness. For sure, I’ve seen quite a few of them, for example, in time capsule houses. Usually, they are discussed with derision.  Definition of derision, from The Free Dictionary:

However, I thing that they are pretty darn cool. You can use as many or few as you like. They are DIY. They reflect light back into a room. They have texture. Why the heck not.

I originally went looking for gold vein mirror tile. The classique.  However, I could not find any new. Well, correction: My glass guy here in Lenox, Carl at Lenox Glass, did find me some new. It was just what I was looking for, but OMG, it was $80 per tile. Yes: $80 per tile.

I also found some on craigslist — gold vein tiles, vintage, 44 pieces for $88 dollars, or something like that, in Cranston, Rhode Island. That’s a three-hour drive for me. I thought about it. But my tusch hurt just thinking about it. Update: They are still there, price is down to $1 a tile. That’s a great deal!

I searched ebay and etsy. Etsy – Bingo! – I found the little motherlode that I was looking for: Several styles of New Old Stock mirror tiles from seller cosasraras. There was a big stash uncovered that is now being unloaded.

Cosasraras has faux bois woodgrain mirror tiles (above). These were very tempting.

Cosasraras has black vein mirror tile.

She has mirror tiles with little diamonds outlined in white. There are two “colors” of mirror in this design: plain mirror inside white-painted diamonds, and coppertone mirror inside the white diamonds. I took a chance and ordered the coppertone. It’s kind of pinkish copper — the photos up higher and thumbnailed on the right are pretty true. I like my tiles a lot. They are weird.

Oh, cosasraras has scenics, too — like the sailing ship, above. Note how it is framed with the faux bois.

There are even Miro-esque scenes. Miro Mirro mirror tiles, hahaha. The come-hither poses on these boxes: priceless. Mirror tiles must have been 70s codes for … swingers? Cover your eyes, under-18s!

Airplane tiles. Ukelele. You gotta love the 70s. You gotta.

Repita: New Old Stock 1976 Mirror tile from cosasraras on etsy, still some left.