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Sorta' similar, this 6x2 border tile is from Tierray Fuego (Santa Barbara Collection).

{{!gwi}}

From Anchor Bay tile (2.75x5.75)

Anchor Bay Border Tile

Here is a link that might be useful: Santa Barbara border tile

Depending on how much you need, you can also find dead stock/salvage. You can try ebay, searches for vintage tile on the Web, Craigslist, or salvage houses.

If you need more than a few yards it can get pricey. But it DOES add a lot of style, so it MAY be worth it, depending on how much it turns out to be.

(And everything is relative. I'm used to things being SO cheap that I'm sometimes yanked back to reality and realize that something "expensive" is just what something new would cost, so it all turns out the same either way. It is true that you would pay much more on ebay than you would at your local salvage barn though, so start there.)

Look at Mission Tile West's Revival Classics line. They have retro liners. I haven't personally used these, but I have seen them used in bungalow kitchens and baths featured in "American Bungalow" magazine. I went with a plain black liner from Subway Ceramics to accent my Subway Ceramics Avalon White subway tiles.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mission Tile West

I think I found something perfect:

Here is a link that might be useful: Restoration Tile

Also, Solistone has some that are pretty nice, and reasonable:

Here is a link that might be useful: Solistone mission tile borders

Oh my goodness these are all such wonderful options!! I guess I need to start looking at tile online now.... but I need to get the agony of the cabinetmaker/contractor decision out of the way first. Thank you all for these suggestions. I think any one of them would be so cute with a plain (and hopefully not too expensive) subway tile.

Tina

Alternately, someone on this forum (klb, I think?) simply cut pieces of colored tile to make a very nice period-looking border. This would be the cheapest option, if you used Lowes Daltile $1/sf colored subways, for instance, and I find it very palatable and sophisticated:

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I love that last fabricated option Circuspeanut. It is closest to the scale of the vintage and is definitely sophisticated:)

I hadn't seen this thread before, but I was in Lowe's and saw some black and whit decorative pieces near their subways. I was looking for floor tile for a half bath, so I didn't spend any time looking at them, but I'm pretty sure they carry American Olean. That might give you a couple of places to look, and if I get back there soon (I have to return the sample I bought), I'll take another look.

American Olean has decorative liners in squares and hex. You can go to their website, the design section, but their catalog that the tile place had was more extensive.

Try these:
http://www.missiontilewest.com/styles/revival/boards/dealerinfo.html

and these (make sure you scroll down by using the thin red bar on the right):
http://www.missiontilewest.com/

These are the tiles I am hoping to use for my kitchen back splash, but while doing an image search, came upon this thread. They will customize the colors in any of their deco liners, but they are not cheap (approx $12.95 for a 1 x 6" custom liner tile). I copied their revival line drawings and mocked up different color combos on my computer to see which pattern and which order to do the colors. I am 99% sold on using these but the cost is making me do one more search to see if I can find similar.

The original purpose of the "liner" was not decorative, it was to fill in a thin gap so the rest could be whole tiles.