Best Choice For The Vintage Style Bathroom Tile Update
Black and white vintage-style tile in a retro bathroom is always a good idea in my opinion.
But then again I am always a little biased when it comes to vintage style, especially for black and white bathrooms.
Welcome to Week Two of the One Room Challenge® for Spring 2024.
As a recap, my husband and I are giving a dated 1970s black and white bathroom a vintage-style makeover.
This week I am sharing what we found underneath the old carpet in this bathroom that the previous owners had installed a long time ago, and sharing some of my favorite vintage tile styles along the way.
To read the full back story of this dated bathroom, I invite you to visit Week One’s post.
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One Room Challenge, Week Two
Ever since we bought our house, I knew that one day we would install new flooring in one of the popular vintage tile designs from the past.
Over the years, I found several favorites such as a marble basket weave, large tiles with decorative stencil-like designs, and the classic black and white checkerboard. Any white tile with black accents in a geometric pattern always grabs my attention.
Since we are not removing the original black shower, toilet, or sink from the 1979s, the tile selection for the new flooring had to have the timeless look of a vintage-style bathroom.
As I mentioned, our house has two other bathrooms with dusty blue fixtures common to a mid-century bathroom. Our previous home had a small half bath with vibrant purple tile on the floor and the walls, a purple toilet, and a purple sink. Mid-century bathrooms were colorful and attention grabbers.
The tile color in a vintage tile bathroom is the focal point.
Even with those bright color schemes in mid-century homes, many homeowners still chose a black-and-white design as a classic choice for bathroom décor. Black and white bathroom decor is both timeless and stylish. It is easily adaptable in a ranch-style home, a farmhouse-style home, and a mid-century modern-inspired home.
For our mid-century-inspired home, I decided to install a classic black and white bathroom floor tile with small hexagonal tiles.
More Vintage Bathroom Tile Ideas
Before our selection of vintage floor tiles could be installed, we had to do the hard work of removing the disgusting carpet.
As we expected, the subfloor hiding underneath all that carpet had water damage from a leaking toilet and the shower.
Most of that section of the subfloor had to be cut out and replaced. After that, a leveling mixture was added over the new boards since the new floorboards were made slightly thinner than the original boards from 1978.
The walls are also very damaged.
While the floors were being repaired, so were some of the damage to the walls. Mostly to cover the holes for the old bath hardware and where the built-in wooden bench was attached to the wall. Sadly there was damage from the rabbit on the lower walls as well. It seems that besides chewing a few holes in the carpet around the wooden bench to put the fibers in her cage, she liked to chew off strips of the sheetrock for bedding as well.
Pets can be very destructive to homes after all.
Timeless tiles in a hexagon shape.
The final step for week two of this challenge was to lay down the black and white hexagon floor tiles.
Purchased at our local Floor and Decor store in Knoxville, TN, these small decorative hexagon-shaped floor tiles recreate the perfect vintage vibe for this bathroom. I also love that the pattern mimics the shape of small flowers.
this hexagon tile was not my first choice for a vintage-style tile for this bathroom.
I wanted a small penny tile in white with a black tile flower pattern.
However, our local store did not have enough of this style in stock for our project and the cost was almost three times more to get them in this vintage tile design.
Remember, the budget is always the final determination of any material selection for a project.
So instead of breaking the budget to have my first choice of vintage bathroom tiles, I purchased my second choice of an inspired vintage tile design in a hexagon pattern.
Staying within the budget and choosing my second option was a good choice.
Now that the tile has been installed, I am so very happy with the way it has already started to change the look and feel of this bathroom. The small black tile pieces blend so well with the planned color scheme of this bathroom makeover.
This simple and classic ceramic tile pattern will make a big impact in this dated old bathroom. Somehow the vintage-inspired tile gives it more of a modern bathroom look than it ever has had before.
Soon after these photos were taken, the floor was quickly grouted and our family arrived for the holidays. Not much more was done for this vintage-inspired bathroom makeover until the last few weeks.
Since then we have debated more and more that we should have started with removing the popcorn ceilings but at the time, the floors were the highest priority for our timeframe before the family arrived for the holidays.
And believe it or not, we are still going back and forth on removing the popcorn ceiling. I don’t like the look of popcorn ceilings, but removing them and resanding the ceiling is just as high on my list of dislikes.
Come back in the next few weeks and see if we tackled the ceiling – or not.
Hugs,
Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Other posts to enjoy:
Adding Vintage Charm to our 1970s Black and White Bathroom
Struggling with Bathroom Ceiling Ideas After Removing the Popcorn Texture
Checklist Update for our 1970s Vintage Bath Remodel
New Lighting and Mirror in our Vintage Bath Remodel
1970s Bathroom Makeover – The Reveal
