Yet another tiling question - sorry

[Deleted User]

NEXT year we hope to be able to afford a new bathroom but THIS year I'm just trying to do a few small things to stop it looking so old fashioned.

I'm going to paint the walls, an offcut of lino for the floor and get a new (cheap) blind BUT my biggest problem is that half the bathroom walls are covered in 15 x 20 cms tiles, mainly white but with a little fleck and, most horribly, some of them have a line of very old fashioned pale pink flowers - not even pretty ones. (I can live with the tiles themselves but not the flowers).

So - my dilemma is how to cover the flowers. They're arranged in a sort of border halfway up the wall surrounding the bath (have I lost you yet???)

Thought about painting just the border but tile paint is very expensive - especially as I need so little of it, as it doesn't come in testers

Then I thought about buying some new decorative edging tiles and just sticking them over the line of flowers (is this possible ??)

Or does anyone-else have any low-cost ideas ?

Ebe_Scrooge

Are the flowers part of the tile, or are they transfers that have been applied afterwards ? If the latter, then some gentle scrubbing with a nylon pan scourer and something like acetone ( nail varnish remover ) should do the trick.

Another alternative may be to stick a wallpaper border over them - you know the sort of thing that goes round the middle of a room ? It probably won't stay up very successfully, what with it being in a bathroom and going onto tiles ( try overlap adhesive rather than wallpaper paste ), but it might do as a cheap 'n' cheerful way of tiding you over temporarily.

Other than that, I'd say the best thing is to put up with it for now. If you're planning on replacing the whole suite next year, then you're going to have to re-tile anyway, and tiles can represent a fair proportion of the whole cost of a bathroom - especially if you go for fairly decent tiles, and a man / woman / other qualified professional trades-person [ ] to fit them.

27col

You could just buy some tile transfers and stick them on the face of the offending tiles. However, if you intend to redo the bathroom in the not too distant future, then just leave them. You will find that the ever constant reminder of a hideous tile is a great incentive to do the work as soon as possible.

Oldsoak

Buy some plain sticky back plastic (Fablon, I think it's called). Scrub the surface of the tiles first, then clean with a household cleaner, rinse and dry. You can cut shapes in it first if you want to, or cut to just inside the grout lines by a mm or 2, then stick it on. It is only a temporary solution but at about £6 a roll you would get a choice of colours.

[Deleted User]

27col wrote: »

You could just buy some tile transfers and stick them on the face of the offending tiles. However, if you intend to redo the bathroom in the not too distant future, then just leave them. You will find that the ever constant reminder of a hideous tile is a great incentive to do the work as soon as possible.

Let's just say that I INTEND to re-do the bathroom, but my husband is less keen. We've lived with it for 10 years (!) He's not bothered and although he's promised me we can get a new one next year, he's been saying that for the last 5

mmy

Maybe we live in the same house, Corona....I too have those flowery border effect tiles, and I too am looking for a solution. I was wondering about painting the tile with the flowers black [my flooring is black and white] to pretend I had a smart black and white bathroom. I've been reading about tile paint, some people seem to think it's OK, others warn you to steer well clear...

Another thought I had was to buy sheet mosaic tiles, and only use what I need to cover the hideous flowers. Topp's Tiles sells sheet mosaics and also snazzy sheet 'border tiles', specially designed as borders, which look a whole lot more expensive...I thought that perhaps covering the flowers with mosaic mirror tiles might work, because they are thinner than the normal mosaic tiles so won't stick out so much once they are up. If we only need to cover the flowers rather than the whole tile, we might be able to use fewer mosaic sheets?

Any further ideas would be great - this is my project for the long weekend, so any help gratefully received!

Mayflower10cat

I inherited heritage type border tiles in a deep, dark Victorian plum colour, check design. Obviously expensive so I was loath to attempt cutting and smashing them out. I opted for tile transfers. What I did was, cut out small squares from the sheet of mosaic effect transfers rather than try to cover the entire tile. I covered only the deep pink squares in the pattern. Yes it took ages but three years later, only a very few are peeling a little at the edges and I simply replace them with a new pale blue square of transfer.

In the kitchen we had some (awfully cutsey) handmade decor inset tiles, about ten of them arranged randomly. Little itty bitty cottages, how twee. I hated them with a passion so got the Dremel out with a cutting blade and removed all the grout just round the hated cottages and after much swearing, managed to prise them out. We replaced the cottages with some of the plain cream tiles that were spare. It was a horrible job doing it and I'd think twice before tackling the bathroom border tiles in the same way!