Last week you got to see how crazy I can get over home improvement when…
Uncovering a Hex Tile Floor Before + After
Remember that weekend when Dan went out of town and I decided to have some fun in our upstairs bathroom and rip up the floor? And I found original white hex tile underneath?! Sounds like a good surprise makeover right? What I intended to be a little “hang something on the wall” and “paint the vanity” turned into a full blown renovation of sorts. I wanted to give you another update on uncovering my original hex tile floor and what it looks like today.
Here is the floor we originally had {on the left}. Although I have no idea why anyone would put a brown and yellow floor in a bathroom. Maybe for obvious stain cover up but that’s just gross. So was the floor. And on the right is how far I’ve come after peeling off the vinyl, and scraping off the paper backing off that vinyl for hours and hours on end over the course of about a year.
Did I mention it took hours? More on that in a minute.
This project started with only a tiny corner of the old vinyl peeled up and with me jumping up and down over what I’d found. I decided to see how much of it I could get off in a day. Of course nothing is ever as easy as “just peeling up the floor” Although I wished it could have been. That’s for sure!
On the left was my first glimpse of that amazing tile and on the right was about how much came up with that first pull on the pliers. It was then I figured there was hope to rescue that floor.
Then I proceeded to pull and rip and pull and cut. It took me about 3 hours. I will do a full how to remove vinyl from tile floor post some time, but just to fill you in quickly, I basically pulled off the vinyl with any tool I had that gripped it, soaked the paper backing that underneath {that was stuck to the floor with the adhesive it was put on with}, and scraped that paper off on my hands and knees with a razor blade.
There really isn’t any other way folks. Trust me I googled. And I You Tubed. And nothing. I decided I had to go my own way at this.
By the middle of that first day I had this. Mind you that day was the same one my hubs was to return home also. So this project was on fast track!
This is the paper backing of the vinyl floor, which stuck to the tile with the adhesive it was put on with. D*mn adhesive. I cursed it I tell you. You can see by my assortment of tools I was trying anything. A pry bar, tin snips, spackle blade. I ended up using a razor blade scraper and lots of water. Acetone worked well to dissolve the adhesive but you can’t leave it on the tile or it will eat away at the baked on finish and I was not about to further damage these tiles after spending so much sweat uncovering them!
You can see on the right the parts of the paper backing that are wet. That’s to make the scraping easier. It comes off better when its wet.
After hours of scraping over the course of several months, I had this. During on the left, and today on the right. Pretty much anytime I’d wash the floor, I’d don the knee pads, fill a bucket with cleaner, and scrape away.
It was so exciting. THIS exciting! Late night selfie. Note the ear plugs and my nice black and white sports bra. Wait, don’t look there! Ear plugs are for the scraping noise. It was about 85 degrees and humid, blah.
The good news about the floor is that most of the adhesive and paper is now off of it, about 98%. The not so good news is that we uncovered damage, which I’m sure is why it was covered in the first place. Three corner spots are filled with self leveling concrete and have had the tile totally removed, so we’ll have to chip that out and replace the tile. And there is a large crack across the middle of the floor. Most of it we can cover with a rug, but it’s still there and we’d have to replace that too.
But over all this floor is as clean as it’s ever been in about 30 years and I’m absolutely loving the tile. I think I have found a replacement too, which is huge. 100+ year old tile is not easy to find, believe me I’ve looked. But there’s hope and just as soon as we finish the bathroom downstairs, we’ll be up here replacing that hex. Can’t wait!
Yay!! for amazing discoveries and love lovely hex tile!! The tile is in amazing shape!! We decided to go with white hex tile & grey grout for our master bathroom ~ best decision ever ~ Crossing my fingers are stays as amazing as yours has over the years
I am in love with that floor! So glad you found a match for those corners! And super cute selfie!
OMG it’s like hitting the tile jackpot (minus all that scraping!) it’s awesome even with its flaws!
What a brilliant result – well done on the time and effort especially the patience. This is a gorgeous patterned tile, simple yet effective which is sometimes the best!
this is so funny…we just peeled up ugly green vinyl that looks like the sister of your yellow…and found the exact same tile! right down to a big crack down the middle.
so, i’d love to know where you found replacement hex tile that’s 100 years old as my house is nearly that old too.
THANK YOU! I just discovered a similar floor in a newly purchased 1908 building. I had my contractor pull up the 1990s doctors office ugly square gray tiles with what amounted to a hand held jack hammer! Now I have to clean the floor and see if it can be saved. You’ve given me hope!
Oh please let me know if you have any suggestions!!! I have an eight story office building with two bathrooms per floor of ugly tile that I discovered is covering 105 year old original hex tile!! It’s like a blessing and a curse at the same time. I am so excited, but the work and money to restore is keeping me at a standstill.
I have tenants that are getting annoyed !!
Any ideas as for safely removing the top layer of porcelain tile and where to buy old hex tiles would be great!
What did you use to clean the tile?? I operate 100 year old K of C with the same tile. Got all the adhesive up with some adhesive remover but there is some stubborn discoloration (some tiles are darker)that may never come up. Used tile and grout cleaner with a floor buffer
I literally had the EXACT SAME thing happen to me yesterday. Peeled back cheap vinyl flooring to uncover original white hex tile (from 1926) in the bathroom. I also found there were some cracks along the floor, and am wanting to replace the tiles along these “fault lines” and get things close to original. Any advice on where you found replacement tile, or any other tips in the repair process?
Hi Eric,
We found some tile that would have worked at a salvage store. The kind that sells old house parts. You can look online of course or at local places like Habitat for Humanity stores or salvage shops. I hope that helps you.
We did not end up repairing or replacing the hex tile and ultimately decided to cover it with an environmentally friendly sheet vinyl in a hex tile pattern. We didn’t want to get into the situation of not knowing what was under it and it was significantly cracked in two places, so that was the best decision for the bathroom. Good luck with your project.
I too discovered the project from h**l when I decided to paint my upstairs, rarely used bathroom in my 1939 home. After reading tgese posts, I feel like I am progressing really well, while before I felt it was going to be a forever project. I lifted the vinyl and spent about four days stripping and scraping the backing up only to find adhesive stuck to the tile, but worse to the grout. I apply vinyl adhesive stripper in sections of about 2’ x2’ and then scrape every bit of adhesive that I can get off of the tile surface. After it is clean and dry, I don my mask and goggles and with dremel in hand, I spend about two hours grinding the top surface of the grout to eliminate the adhesive. Mind you my tiles are smaller than what you have here, each line of grout is only about 1”. When one section is done, I move to the next. Now down to my last two sections tgat I will finish up this weekend. Total time so far about 6 hours a day, one day a week over the past 8 weeks. I have been lucky, no missing, broken or terribly stained tiles. The next challenge will be how to restore some brilliance to the tile itself so I can finish it all up.
Hello is there another update on this floor? Thanks!
Hi Amber,
We ended up covering the broken hex tile floor that we found with roll out vinyl. It was a good decision and the new floor has held up perfectly. You can see more about it here:
https://decoradventures.com/install-sheet-vinyl-floor/
-Jessica
What cleaner do you use when the tile gets dirty from normal use? Did you clean the grout (same question)? Did you reseal the floor?
I on the other hand have lived in my 1930’s home with this tile that was never Vinal-ed over! I wasn’t willing to go to that kind of bathroom remodeling when I refreshed the bathroom. but I’d like the floor to look better.
Hi Leslie,
We ended up covering this hex tile floor, so I don’t have any tile to clean, except in our small front foyer. I just steam wash it with water and a steam mop.
All that work for a damaged floor. You could have put in a new floor for the same effort. Plus it would looked, well not cracked and filled with concrete.
Good lord. It gets worse. You spent hours on end removing old vinyl flooring, cleaning and restoring a busted up cracked floor, bragged about it online, wasted more time on it and then finally, wait for it….covered it up with, ahemmm…. Vinyl flooring that looks like…. Vinyl. But hey… It’s environmentally “friendly”. Whatever dumb crap that means.
Next time do it right and replace the floor with the correct tile and do it right. At least then it will make sense you brag about it. Plus you will spend less time, it will acutally serve a waterproofing putpose, and it will actually look better.
There’s 15 minutes of my life I will never get back. Anyon3 else reading this, close your browser tab now and don’t make the same mistake.
I just did this on a whim, and used my steam cleaner to loosen up some of the tiles. Helped a lot!
I would suggest checking for asbestos when ripping out old floor and adhesives.
My old hex floor also has a crack but it doesn’t bother me. It adds to the charm, as I see it. There are a few cracks in the walls too–again, I’m proud of them. I did have a plumbing leak that required tiles to be replaced under the radiator. We had no problem finding matching hex tile (not old) and you cannot see any difference between the old and new areas. One thing–don’t expect the grout to be white. Most old tile was grouted in gray.