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.
Dave makes mid century modern wall panels for his living room for $250 
Atomic clock and sign art by Stevotomic 
Tambour — where to buy this decorative wood for doors or trim 
Retro Renovation 2013 Color of the Year: Broyhill Premier Chapter One Lime Green 
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JKaye says
In the mid-90s, I bought an early 70s ranch that had a short wall of gold vein mirror tiles in the living room. I decided they just had to go, and off they went. Looking back, I think I was way too hasty. But I was too worried about what other people would think — adult people, who might have laughed at them. But I bet my kids would have found them to be great fun. Moral of the story is to take time making changes to a house, so you can find out if you just might like some feature or other. (But I never have regretted removing the dark green and burgundy wallpaper and Victorian-style light fixture from the bathroom of that house!)
George K. says
I bought a 1966 ranch two years ago. I have recessed shelves in the basement, and the backs of them are lined in gold veined mirrors. They are easily falling off, so I’ve been taking them down. I think that they are not original to the house but were added when the second family moved in after 1973. (I’m the third owner). My mom designed and my dad built a mirrored tile wall section (in our 1941 tudor entry way) about 1970 or ’71. It was 4 squares x 6 squares all gold veined tiles with smoked gold veined tiles in the four corners. A few years later, my mom found small elongated diamond mirror shapes with adhesive on the back and applied them to the intersections of the mirrored tiles in the center of the overall display. (We also had Christmas ornaments that looked exactly like the diamond shapes as well as elongated ovals circa ’76). Eventually, at my mom’s request, I took the whole thing down in the mid-’80s. (My dad had mounted it on plywood).
Jocelyn says
We have a 1968 ranch. The master bedroom has a chair rail and the area below the chair rail is painted baby blue. Above the chair rail is a light blue and yellow floral wall paper. The “feature wall” was covered with 12″x12″ gold veined mirrors above the chair rail… the entire wall. They were mounted right on the drywall with the wallpaper put up around them, which makes me think they were put in when the house was built.
I took them down when our first child was born and was sleeping in the room. I wish I knew what I did with them, there were so many! We’ve never been able to completely remove the adhesive from the wall, it’s these puffy double sided stick squares.
Tasha says
Our living room wall is decked out with mirrored tiles! Two panels (I guess that would be the term). 3 tiles wide by 7 tiles tall, with the outer tiles on the top curved to make an arch. They are clear with gold veins.
The previous owners even left an almost full box in the basement (5 out of 6 tiles), they are Hoyne Mirro-Tiles. I looked them up recently and found them in newspaper ads in the late 70s through to the early 80s. Our box is much more plain (no groovy gals) so it could be one from the early 80s I suppose. We think they’re a kitschy addition in our 50s ranch so we’ll be keeping them up, at least for a good long while (and saving the extra box in case of accidents). 🙂
Tasha says
For fun I snapped the front/back of the box of leftover mirrored tiles from the previous owners…click on View All Sizes to see biggie version:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whoanellie/7110283003/in/photostream
pam kueber says
Yup, that’s it. Mirro-Tile. Hence my miro-mirro-mirror joke!
Kim Harayda says
Oooh THANK you! I have been looking for these! When I was little my parents had a 10 x 10 wall of these (gold veined) in their bedroom and I loved them ! Unfortunately they took them down for drywall & texture (greige too- mom is a big fan of greige)- I’ve been looking for these off and on for our 1964 ranch….now…where to put them… 🙂