I'm not a frequent poster and my experience is limited, but I want to say that I love your tiles. If they fit the style of the new kitchen, I would definitely use them. They would add so much personality and individual style.

If your kitchen is going to be very contemporary or if the cabinets would clash, then that's another story.

Anyway, I think you were right to save them.

I think they are absolutely gorgeous and should be reused! Do you have firm ideas color-wise where these could be incorporated somewhere in the kitchen? The last tiles have such a pretty red color. Would it coordinate with the red barrel hood? I hope you can find a way to use them! Keep us all posted.

I think they are beautiful and you were right to save them. My main concern woulb be coordinating with the red hood since the tiles have red in them, but it looks like a dark orange red on my computer. They'll be stunning if you can make the colors work!

My kitchen is vintagey so I could make the tile work.

Rocketmomkd, notlazysusan --> My hood color is not ordered so I could probably get the color matched if I can figure out how to use the tiles. Modernaire (the hood guys) seem to be open to customizing the hood color. The hoor is 57" wide and 30" deep so it will be a pretty big element in the kitchen.

The issue is I have only 4 of the small red tiles and one of them has a chipped corner (you can see in the pic.) I have a lot of the field tiles with all that cool patterns but not enough for both walls of the galley. I think it may be wierd to have different backsplashes on the differnt walls.

The teal green and plum tiles are originally from the bathroom. I am guessing I can't use both of these.. Just one or the other. Basically I need more tiles to make this work and I am at a loss on what will work.

The wall behind the cooktop is about 30in before the hood begins. I could potentially make this 36in but the barrel hood will look squattier. I was hoping to create a ledge in the backsplash so I am not sure if all of the teal colored tiles can be used.

No. They are horrible. You should send them to me instead. I will properly hang, I mean dispose of them right away :)

Senator 13 beat me to the generous offer to take them off your hands! I think they're wonderful - well worth the effort to reuse, if you can. Just don't throw away - except toward another GWer!

I'm with senator. But, send them to me! I could see a beautiful inset behind the range or a bordered area behind the range. Depends on how many you have.

Are they original to the house?

They are really gorgeous for the right space. Can they be used on the floor? My guess is no, but figured it was worth a try to intersperse them in the tile or do a sort of "frame" design in the tile somewhere.

Senator, Susie,

Thanks for the compliments. I am feeling a bit more confident. The tiles are original to the house (so from around 1949).

Susie --> I basically have what you see.. So around 16 teal ones and 4 red tiles and the about 80 or so field tiles with some odds and ends for trim. So if I do anything behind the stove, do I need a border around this? I was thinking maybe using 9 of the teal ones in a square panel behind the cook top and using the rest here and there. I know it sounds very unformed.. I don't know what to pull a design together :)

Heck yes! Reuse them. I can see using the teal ones as 3 tiles high by 5 tiles wide behind your cooktop, although I'm not certain of the dimensions, so maybe that's too wide. If it is, do a 3 tile by 4 tile. I don't think I'd do a square, but rather a rectangle.

What about getting a custom shadowbox style frame and put the 3 unchipped red tiles in there to hang as wall art. Or possibly not even a shadowbox, but just a normal custom frame...the nice thing about that is that you can change where they are and if you move, you could take them along with you.

Those are beautiful! I wish I found something like that mulling around in our home! Use them if you can, I would totally do it!
Good luck!
Kim

I would do the ledge itself and/or an inset splash behind the range and change the hood color to go with the tile -- maybe copper to go with instead of trying to match the glaze colors. The three might go in another location. I'd be tempted to see if the fourth could be re-glazed or touched up somehow.

THEY ARE GORGEOUS!!! Use them!! There is something to be said for reusing the original elements of the house, keeping its character in tact. They are precious. Glad you asked before throwing them out!! Shwoooo

I love your tiles and, from the description of your new kitchen, it sounds as if they'd work just fine. If you don't have enough to go around, could you introduce a neutral/complementary tile for the bulk of the wallspace and use the reclaimed tiles intermittently for color accent? Just a thought.
I also like what another poster suggested for the four reddish tiles: mount/frame them and use as a piece of art. Good luck!

I love the idea of using a square or rectangle of the turquoise tile above the range as a focal point. The burgundy color (on my monitor) in those tiles would be a lovely color for the hood, IMHO. I would use the remaining turquoise tile as accents mixed in with a simpler field tile. Perhaps the accent tiles could be set on the diagonal.

I just packed up the tile from the courtyard floor where they were lying for the past 6 months :) I will take them to Fireclay or Stonelight to see if we can come up with a pattern. In theory, I like the panel over the ledge behind the cooktop. As many have noted, the trick would be to find field tile that can work with these tiles which are thicker than most tiles.

Kaysd --> I have to see if they can match the burgandy color for the hood.

My tile guy confirmed that I have enough of the field tile (the 4x4 squares) for one side of my galley (around 13ft). I wonder if it would be too wierd to do 2 different backsplashes. I can't see the red going with the turquoise and burgandy.

Yes, yes, yes! They're so handsome. Good for you for hanging on to them.

What if you used just enough to do a ledge behind the range and depending on how many you have left over, you could incorporate them in to your backsplash. I see what I'm thinking, but can't explain it. One like every two feet or so, kind of make it look like they were randomly placed in the bs? It would seem to tie it in with the range bs.

I am not a fan of the field tile and I think you should sell me the blue and green pattern tile. Okay, then I guess the next best thing is for you to try and reuse that tile. It's really pretty.

I agree you can only use one pattern tile or the other.....now if only I could convince you to use the "other" one.... : )

Several beat me to telling you how awful they were and to send them to me.

Honestly they are gorgeous. If you could show a picture of your spaces you need to fill in it would be easier to visualize how it could be done. I think grouping the teal tiles is a good idea. you could pull any one or two of the colors out of the teal tiles for more fill.

I can not tell from the pictures if they are the same depth of a regular 4 by 4 wall tile. Would you need to frame them with the narrow edge tiles or? WOW I could have a fun time with these. These tiles and I are the same age. LOL

Wonderful to reuse them in your house.

Another thought is set the fancy tiles, mixed, on point in a field of the fill tiles. It would be a lot of corner cutting of the field tiles but once you had your tile saw set up it would go pretty quick.

Wow, all of those tiles are really lovely and have wonderful history to them. I definitely think you should use them somewhere and were spot on to pay extra to save them. Hopefully someone more skilled than me can help you figure out the best way to reuse them.

Thank you all for convincing me to use the tile and burgandy tile in the kitchen. I confirmed that I can colormatch the burgandy color for the barrel hood. If for some reason I cannot use the tile, I know there are people on gardenweb who can give it a home :)

Now I have to pull the colors and the look together. I am going to pull together a mood board of sorts to figure out the cabinet colors, wall colors etc. Have to upload some pictures of the space so that the folks can visualize it.

Hi,

This is very beautiful tile! I have some suggestions that will perhaps help you with creating a design that will go with your tiles. I work at Fireclay Tile in San Jose, where we produce beautiful, durable ceramic products using sustainable manufacturing processes and recycled materials.

One great thing you can do is use the decorative tiles as a backslash and use 2x2 accent tiles around as a border. You can also integrate the tiles with field tile and use molding to frame it (we have over 112 colors available!)

Happy Tiling!

Here is an example of what you can do using accent pieces as a border.

This is from our Debris Series, which is made out of 60% recycled materials at Fireclay Tile in San Jose, Ca.

im looking at tile pics in general (examples of fireclay) and ended up necroposting. sorry.. lol. but if you saved any photos of the backs of them it might tell you more about these. the california tile industry was vibrant in that time period. or was winding down anyway. they could actually be fairly valuable if they were from one of the better known producers like pacific or catalina tile or something along those lines. the field tile looks pretty darned special imo.