Windsor Terrace Reno

« The good with the bad.... A Strip Off! »

January 25, 2007

The tile! Save the tile!

Another one of the things that really drew us to this house was something we knew we wouldn't be able to use (at least, not in its original context) when the house was ready to live in. It was the tiles in the upstairs bath.

Pretty ain't it? I think so.

Anywho, the bathroom is in pretty bad shape (yes, its worse than the photo would have you believe!) The concept of a functioning toilet and sanitary area has long escaped this bathroom. Add that to the necessary damage in replacing all the plumbing, etc I know will be done in renovating this room, and we were pretty much gauranteed to have to tear the place apart.

{For the purists out there, we are going to reuse the tub and sink in addition to saving the tile.}

So the plan was to try to pry those fancy trim tiles off as best as possible. If we could save enough maybe we could retile the bathroom if we were lucky enough to find some replacements (shockingly enough, I did find a company that had a total of two tiles. They were $28/each.). But the question was, how do you get them off the wall?

Flashback time --> Place: Home Depot / Time: 2006. Mr. Limestone picks up dremel and puts into cart. Mrs. Limestone looks at her darling husband and asks 'What the hell do we need that for?' Mr.Limestone says something but all I remember is hearing the wahwahwah that the Charlie Brown characters hear. I rolled my eyes and rolled the cart to the checkout thinking we were wasting our precious dough on yet another wasteful toy that Mr. Limestone deemed we just 'had to have' and was 'very useful, you'll see'. Well, now I see. Mr. Limestone: 1pt; Mrs. Limestone: 0.

Mr.Limestone brings out the handy dremel. Back to Home depot for a myriad of attachments that might help in loosing up that tile. Please enjoy the photo reactment:

Do you notice something in these photos? Ah yes, tiles remain on wall. Damn them!

How about another technique?

Hmmm...also a bust.

After a few minutes of this, Mr. L decided to pop off the door molding and see if he could wedge some space from there. Voila! Success!

Not only did he get most of the decorative tile off but he also got nearly all of the subway tile too. Sweet!

Bad news was that on the back wall (of course the largest wall!), the glue wasn't quite as cooperative and those tiles are a lost cause. But I think we have enough tile to do something good. Maybe a backsplash?

Anyone else have a cool idea for salvage tiles? We dont have enough to retile but Id really like to use them somewhere.

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Comments

Nice work! And a backsplash sounds great. Or maybe just tile one small wall? This kind of restoration is a sooooooper-tedious, dirty, difficult job. We discovered the joy of grinding out the nasty grout from circa-20s, 1/2-inch thick bathroom tile with dremels a couple years ago in a 1910 house in Chicago. We burned up easily 20 bits and a dremel or two. I bought a grinder and several diamond blades. We used flat-head screwdrivers, chisels, hammers, prybars, cotton masks, scary-looking respirators, and lots of earplugs--the tools were earsplittingly loud in the room's small tiled spaces. The tile installers used cotton string as a spacer between tiles, and it caught fire the whole time we were grinding. The tiles were set in concrete, crackled (but in a really cool way), and fragile as hell. We did this for at least 7 days after getting off work and probably two weekends. But we saved enough tiles to patch wherever we needed, and we re-grouted with clean grout. Yay! Perhaps my partner's greatest decision on this bath was to realize that in the shower stall, where half of the original tile had long ago been ruined and replaced, we could never hope to match this faded, 80-year-old tile with anything contemporary, and instead to get another material--in our case, 12-inch limestone tiles--that complemented the existing tile without pathetically attempting to ape it. But I digress. Congrats on getting so many tiles! I love old tiles...

Posted by: Bob999 at January 26, 2007 11:29 PM

Thanks Bob - I'd love to see some photos if you have them.

What did you use to clean the tiles after you got them off?

Sounds like you had a lot harder time than we did. We we pretty lucky in that the tiles we could salvage came off after Mr. L figured a way to get the first one off.

The wall we couldn't salvage was the back wall thats on the attached side...since there is absolutely no give in it, it was impossible to seperate it from the back wall. God knows how they attached it.

But at least we got the subway tile along with the decorative kind.

Posted by: Mrs. Limestone at January 27, 2007 8:12 AM

I hate to say it but with tile a mix of old and new might not work out so hot. I would think you could possibly use them in a small space like the back splash to the laundry area or something? Or else obviously you can use the decorative ones as a top edging somewhere with newer tiles.

Posted by: Anonymous at January 27, 2007 1:28 PM

Just have the old tile reglazed . It will look brand new

Posted by: eletricgreek at January 27, 2007 2:38 PM

How can i have the tile reglazed?

Posted by: Anonymous at January 30, 2007 12:20 PM