A: You have a few options. Searching at used building materials suppliers, such as Community Forklift, is one option but it’s likely to be futile. Tiles sold at these stores tend to be leftovers from recent jobs or garage clean-outs, and most are relatively modern tiles. Never-installed vintage tiles might occasionally show up. Even more rare would be vintage pieces pried up from a floor in one house and offered for sale in another.
But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to reuse tiles. Because many houses in your neighborhood have similar floors, you might start by asking your neighbors if anyone with matching tile is planning a bathroom remodel. Extend your search online through your local Nextdoor or Buy Nothing group. A friendly contractor could focus on removing tiles so they can be reused, especially if only a few pieces are needed or if you hired the contractor for your repairs.
Or you might be able to find what you need from a company that specializes in matching historic tiles, including mosaic pieces. Ceramic tiles for mosaic floors are usually unglazed porcelain, a quarter-inch thick — or even thinner if mounted to a mesh backing that groups pieces needed to cover about one square foot. For historical accuracy, look for tiles that are flat with square edges rather than rounded, “pillow” edges. Flat tiles accommodate grout that’s level with the tops of the tiles, which is probably what your floor has. One bonus: You can trim pieces, if necessary, without affecting the uniformity of grout lines. So if you find tiles that match the colors you need but they are a bit too big, you can cut them to fit. Or if the diamond shape you need for one of your floors isn’t available, you can make them by cutting off corners of square pieces. Use a wet tile saw with a diamond blade. (Home Depot rents a mini tile saw that would work for the small pieces you’d need starting at $17 for four hours. Or you could buy one like the QEP Torque Master 3/5 HP wet saw, for $66.25. Also buy a diamond blade — $15.93 for the 4-inch-diameter QEP black widow recommended for this saw.)
To find the colors you need, check online at stores that focus on vintage-looking tile. Matching colors online isn’t reliable, so order samples or color cards — whatever the company recommends. American Restoration Tile in Little Rock supplies tiles in 32 colors that were common from 1895 to 1940, including seven shades of green and three of yellow. Erin Oliver, the principal at American Restoration Tile’s factory, can send a free color card that renders the colors accurately. If nothing is a good match, the company can match what you need. The fee for color matching, though, is $1,000 per color, so you need to factor in how accurately you need to match. The tiles, whether stock or custom-colored, run around $45 a square foot, depending on the pattern.
American Restoration Tile manufactures a variety of shapes: hexagons in three sizes, squares in three sizes, rectangles in three sizes, rounds, diamonds, and combinations including two variations of “octagon and dot,” a pattern that consists of square or rectangular tiles with corners clipped off to fit one side of small square tiles tilted at a 45-degree angle. The largest squares are 1/16th of an inch bigger than the 1.5 inches you measured on your tile. Your measurement might be off, or you might be able to get the space you need by extending into the grout space a bit. Or you can trim to fit.
Other companies are also worth checking out, even if they don’t make custom colors. Clay Squared to Infinity in Minneapolis offers 21 historic colors in hexagon, round, rectangle and square shapes in various sizes, all mesh-mounted. (It’s easy to pull off individual pieces if you don’t need foot-square sections.)
Heritage Tile once made custom-colored tile but now focuses more on helping customers find appropriate tiles and selling several tile lines, including Viva unglazed porcelain mosaic tiles for floors. These tiles come in octagon, cross, square, triangular and rectangular pieces in numerous sizes, all available in 24 colors. A color card showing all colors is free to anyone; trade partners can receive free tile samples.
Or, instead of focusing on finding matching pieces, you might be able to free up enough pieces from your own floors to patch damaged sections. If you or an earlier owner added a vanity after the tiles were installed, for example, you could temporarily move the cabinet and harvest the tiles underneath. YouTube videos show a variety of ways to remove floor tiles without breaking them. One good approach for a someone who doesn’t do this very often: Use a multi tool with a grout-removing blade to cut through grout lines in a square. (A DeWalt 20-volt cordless multi tool with battery and charger is $159 at Home Depot. The blade is $17.92.)
Tap a wide putty knife, the blade of a painter’s 5-in-1 tool, or a thin pry bar through one of the joints you opened and gently, little by little, lift the nearby tiles. Mosaic tiles may lift up in sections if they were applied with a mesh backing. Scrape off the back residue before reusing the tiles.
One caution: One picture you sent shows a fairly large crack across the floor. Ask an experienced contractor to help figure out what caused that so you can fix it before you tackle the tile repair. You may need to fortify the floor supports, and to get access for that you might need to remove all the tile. Or you may be able to go in from underneath, through a ceiling of the room below or via a basement or crawl space. If you do need to remove all of the tiles to fix the floor, you will have lots of options for creating a vintage look — without worrying about matching the exact colors, shapes or sizes.
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