I am renovating my 1919 bathroom and I’d like to restore the original design: 1″ unglazed hex tiles on the floor, 3×6 subway tiles on the walls.

In the original configuration, the wall tiles connect to the floor through a cove or sanitary tile — a curved 2×6 piece, much more curved than contemporary bullnose tiles. Problem is, I can’t find this kind of tile, except on subwaytile.com, and those tiles are much thicker than the ones I am using for the walls.

Any suggestions on where I can find a cove tile EXACTLY like the one in the picture?

Alternatively, do you think I can use tiles with different thickness?

Someone out there must have solved this problem already! Please help. Thanks all!


Comments

  1. I don’t know if anyone here has used them, but Nemo Tile’s Jamaica location sometimes has things among its older stock that will match designs that are no longer in production. It might be worth a phone call, visit, or email with very good jpeg’s and dimensions. Custom producing small quantities of a tile (or wallpaper or whatever) can be pretty prohibitive.

  2. In a 1922 coop I used to own the original tiles were as BHS described except the 6×6 tile sanitary cove base was in black. It transitioned nicely to the black and white hex tiles with black border used on the floor.

  3. For what it’s worth, I have two original 1919 bathrooms with subway tile and thought the majority of the field tile is 3×6 subway tile, the base is 6×6 field tile. Subwaytile.com’s 6×6 sanitary cove base would look great instead of the flat field tile but I think the one you show above would look wrong, regardless of the thickness.

    I used Subwaytile’s unglazed hex floor tile for one of the bathrooms where I had to tear up the floor to replace plumbing, and was actually able to replace missing/broken original tiles with their Avalon White color. You can’t see the patches, which still amazes me.

    If you’re interested and think it would help I can send you photos.

  4. Contact Restoration Tile in Arkansas. They probably have exactly what you need. If they don’t, they will copy your existing tile exactly. Prices are reasonable for custom, there are no minimums, they deliver the custom jobs in five weeks.