Love it AND Leave it: a Take on Vintage Bathroom Floor Tile

In my earlier years of real estate I often found myself carting my son, Sam, through broker's opens on Tuesdays.  We would make a game out of finding different colored vintage bathrooms.  

Sam would get a kick out of seeing a BLUE toilet.  Or a PINK bathtub.  It was a fun way to keep him occupied and to keep me learning and working.  Yesterday, I found myself back on the hunt for vintage bathrooms.

I became inspired to write about vintage floors in bathrooms after seeing the first home on tour.  The only thing that caught my eye in the whole house was the tile floor.  So I spent the rest of tour on a hunt for vintage tile floors, hoping I would find some really crazy and fun floors.  Honestly, most of what I saw was neutral and in my opinion awesome.  (see pics below)

To think, these floors have existed for nearly 75-100 years!  (In fact one home I saw in WFB was built in 1900...so those floors are 115 years old).  

I started to do some research on vintage tile.  Here are a few fun facts...

1.  The tiles were likely laid in concrete...which is why the grout is not white.  (So you can stop scrubbing now!)

2.   Depending on the era the tile can be glass, ceramic or porcelain.  If you are wondering why your tile doesn't "shine" it's because if it is porcelain or ceramic, there was never a shiny glaze applied.  It's not meant to shine.  Glass tiles do have a shiny finish.

3.  Depending on the shapes of tiles, and how they are laid, there are a few categories of vintage bathroom tile: hexagon patterns, penny round, broken joint, straight joint, basket weave, and spiral.  

4.  If you want to repair an area of your vintage tile, there are sources online where you can order vintage tile to match.  Check out RestorationTile.com
5.  Many of the immigrants who moved to Milwaukee (German's, Polish & Italian's) liked this mosaic style of tile.

I decided to name this post "Love it AND Leave it" because so often people are wrapped up in needing to replace everything in a home because it's not new.  I absolutely love homes, design, style and architecture.  I am a bit old school, and like the idea of preserving original aspects of a home...and treating a home like a collector car.  So if you have a beautiful pattern in your bathroom, my vote is to "leave it".   Of course, in the end we need to figure out what is best for our lifestyle and what our financial goals are with our home.  

Check out the old tile advertisement I found...what a hoot!