I am restoring an Art Deco period bathroom. It has great looking "New York Subway" tiles. These tiles are rectangular (about 3" x 6"), white tiles that you see in some of the NYC older subway stations, built from the turn of the (last) century to, I guess, the late 1930s.
I need to replace a section of the tiled wall (already retiled with modern tiles) and would like to match the original tiles.
I've done these repairs in several other apartments and had found modern-production identically sized white tiles. The only difference between the old ones and new, is that the new ones have rounded edges. The original tiles have square edges.
Has anyone seen these lately? Anyone know of a source for the original or exact reproduction "New York Subway" tiles? Thanks for any input!
Last year we finished a kitchen renovation in out old house, and selected an cream colored, crackle glazed, 3"x6" tile from McIntyre Tile (link follows), laid in a "subway" pattern for our backsplash. Looks spectacular.
See:
formatting link
for classic crackle glazes They will make rectangular tiles in whatever size desired, although
2x4 and 3x6 are pretty standard. They also have a nice collection of heavy border pieces.
That said, our local purveyor of tile, had several manufacturers that could provide 2x4 and 3x6 tiles, but we liked the McIntyre look the best. This was partially because their quality of their glazes, and partially due to the subtle variations between tiles that comes from their hand made nature. Some of the other manufacturers only had snowy white, or were machine pressed, with a cushion edge, which doesn't look old.
They are not cheap but certainly not outrageous either; something like $7a square foot if I remember correctly, but we really didn't need that much. They also made up a custom length of border trim for us. There was an additional charge, but the two pieces of custom length were cheaper than the four pieces of stock length. They also glaze your order from one batch of glaze, so make sure you order what you need the first time.
Also note the look depends on laying the tiles with a much narrower grout line than what is custom today. I simply used tounge depressors as spacers. However, since it is a hand cut tile, there are some slight variations in overall size that make laying somewhat of a challenge. In general, I pulled the spacers after finishing the row above, while the tile was still a little 'loose' and made final adjustments by eye.
As a final note: I am in no way connected with McIntyre Tile, just a happy customer.
Thank you, Dan and Dave for the great info and the leads! I guess Daltile and Americanolean have these in the current product line up, but only McIntyre mentions the crazing that is so important.
It is very nice to know that with some searching old tile installations can continue on. I hate it when people replace the well designed classics with tacky and cheap HD aesthetics.
As a follow-up to this thread, I just bought a beautiful old home built in the 30's and the bathroom is tiled with these same 3x6 subway tiles. After we finally finished stripping the paint off of them (yes, the old owners painted them baby blue) we were saddened to find them partially stained. Only a few maintain their original color. Most of them have what looks like a darker brownish hue beneath the surface. In many places, it traces the little cracks that have formed on the surface of the tile. My guess is that it's either mildew from many years of neglect that seeped into the tile or perhaps the paint chemicals seeped into the tiles and stained them.
Leads to the question, is it possible to clean these old tiles? Is there anything on the market that I can apply on the wall and let it soak for a while? (we're not moving in for a few weeks) I don't know what else to do. I don't know if these tile resurfacers can maybe help. I certainly don't want to put up a tub liner to cover them. Any ideas? Much appreciated, Manny West Roxbury, MA
I am reliably informed by an antique dealer friend of mine that he uses commercial toilet bowl cleaners leaving it to soak on the tiles, then wiping clean with water after about half an hour.
He said he used Harpic, but reckons any of the commercially available ones will work.
I would suggest you try a small area first and see what happens.
Thanks for the suggestions! I see the Harpic toilet bowl cleaner comes in gel form. That's perfect because other cleaners will run down the wall and evaporate dry before they can be absorbed. I can't wait to try it out. Will have to shovel 2ft of snow first though. :)
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