Fixing Bathroom Tiles – Part 1

I don’t know whether it was good fortune or bad fortune when I recently moved house and bought a 1960’s house with a turquoise bathroom – some might say, at least it wasn’t avocado but, let’s be honest, there is not much in it. Turquoise, avocado, pink or yellow might have been the height of fashion 50 years ago but it has been a long time since anyone actually chose a coloured bathroom suite. Most of us who end up with them do so out of necessity or by buying a house with “potential” to which we plane to make significant home improvements.
But now reality has set in and we are faced with the prospect of re-designing the whole bathroom – stripping out not only the dated bathroom suite but the matching wall tiles too, and starting again from scratch. What is surprising is that so many of these coloured bathroom suites with their matching tiles still survive today.  Mine from 1963 is in surprisingly good condition but it just had to go – so the old suite is out and the new one is installed – pristine and white. All that remains is to install the floor and wall tiles and the finishing touches.

The wall surfaces have been well prepared and are ready for the new wall tiles. The layout has been planned so that there are no annoying narrow strips of tiles in noticeable places.  The walls are full of horizontal and vertical lines marking the tile layout and it’s time to get started on fixing the tiles.

I have chosen large 32.5 x 49 cm porcelain tiles – that doesn’t equate to anything standard in imperial measurements but somehow the proportions of these large wall tiles just look right. They will be interspersed with a double layer of 5 x 5 cm large mosaic tiles at “dado rail” height and a single layer at “picture rail” height. The net effect will be two full height tiles from floor to dado level and from dado to picture rail level then half a tile up to the ceiling. I’m confident it will look fanastic…

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1 Response

  1. Melloney says:

    You’ve really helped me believe that I can do some DIY and save a ton of money. Thanks for the advice

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