Everyone who restores old houses understands that it is inherently an addiction that we feed. For some it is the rich textiles and draperies that they adorn their historic homes with, researching historically-accurate patterns and fabrics. For others it is the furniture that they seek, picking period pieces that fit exactly into the time period of their home. And for others, it is the gardens with tediously worked soil and flower beds that create a sense of history around the property that transport you to another, more simple time. Strangely enough, for us it is tile.
Tile is such a mundane material, used for centuries to line corridors, walls, walkways and backsplashes. It is a common material, so often overlooked for the more showy architectural features such as intricate woodwork, grand staircases, fancy ironwork and detailed plasterwork. It can be decorative and flashy — outrageous almost, but mostly it just fits so quietly and naturally into its background that you barely even notice its presence. That, I believe, is when tile performs it job most exemplarly.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when our tile addiction first began. Like all addictions, it begins with a first taste, then a thirst for more. We spent years chasing Tiffany windows, finding them in so many backwater churches as well as big city cathedrals. We viewed them curbside outside of grand mansions and back lit from inside the sanctity of museums. One theme that seemed to follow these windows, either in their ecclesiastical settings or their residential ones, was the lush surroundings in which they were housed. So many churches with their geometric tile floors, the single-colored pieces large and small arranged into a larger more coherent pattern, occasionally accented by an intentional scattering of encaustic, or patterned, tiles. The homes with their colored tiles, usually surrounding a fireplace, many displaying figures or mythical beasts in a dimensional glazed material, bright and bold colors. They always grabbed our attention and held it, almost hypnotically in the way they draw you in, you could get lost in their patterns and colors.
While the windows are what brought us to those places, it was inevitably the tile that arrested our attention and caused us to linger even longer than we had planned, discussing the intricacy and the hues and how they played against each other. We were proud that our house, as well, had an original encaustic tile floor in the vestibule.
Encaustic/Geometric tiles, for those who have never dealt with them, are clay-based or concrete-based tiles baked with the color through the entire tile. They lack a shiny glaze, sporting a matte, or natural finish. They are perfectly flat and have squared edges (rather than a bevel) and are meant to be fitted together with only the hint of a grout line. The “geometric” tiles are without a pattern, and the “encaustic” tiles are of the same materials, but contain a pattern, which penetrates through the entire tile, so that foot traffic will never wear the pattern out, even if the tile is worn down over time. They were made in the U.K., Europe and in the U.S. and became wildly popular in the 1860s to 1890s. As they went out of fashion after the Victorian period, many large encaustic tile manufacturers went out of business. The material has recognized somewhat of a renaissance in this country, beginning in the 1970s or so, when the Smithsonian decided to repair some of their historic tile floors and persuaded one of the U.K. factories, still in business, to pull out their old formulas and begin production again. The trend caught on, and people began to repair, rather than remove their damaged historic encaustic tiles.
Eventually salvage operations took note of this new trend, and they, too, began to carefully pull up old tile floors and fireplace hearths and surrounds. Churches that fell to the wrecking ball were stripped clean of their pews, altars, stained glass windows, and now even the tile was saved from being deposited in a dump and buried. Intact fireplace surrounds became more valuable than individual pieces, so more care was taken when removing them not to damage the pieces, which would diminish their salvage value. Collectors began noting the old manufacturer names on the back, and eventually documenting their finds. Books were being written on antique tiles and patterns, and their murky history began to find light of day. Today there are many resources for the tile collector to research their finds.
One of the first tile discoveries we encountered in the house was the fireplace hearth in one of the rear bedrooms. It appeared to be concrete painted black. After moving some furniture one afternoon, some of the black paint was chipped and there appeared to be a second color underneath. I took a scraper to the paint to find out what was underneath and was delighted to find an encaustic tile hearth. My scraping became more enthusiastic after that, as I unearthed the exact thing I had wished to have in our 1870s house.
Our second tile discovery was two-fold. The rear parlor had a fireplace with a beautiful Gothic-patterned dimensional glazed tile surround. After the auction, one of the tiles in the set had disappeared, presumably an auction-goer had noticed the loosened tile and taken it as a souvenir. We were downcast, as replicating these tiles would be costly and difficult, and we knew that any replica could never match the original set perfectly. A few years later, we had the chance to remove the fireplace mantle in order to repair the plaster and re-build the firebox, and found the missing tile nestled behind the mantle, intact and dusty, but none the worse for wear. Needless to say, we were thrilled.
The marble mantelpiece in the adjoining front parlor was not original to that room. The original mantelpiece and mirror, identical to the ones in the rear parlor, been moved to the basement great room. We removed the marble mantle and re-installed the original wood mantle in the front parlor, excited that the parlors again had their matching mantels, mirrors, and chandeliers. The only thing missing was the matching tile surround. Since that tile had been manufactured sometime in the 1880s, it was going to be impossible to find a matching set. With that understanding in mind, we found and dismissed many antique fireplace tile surrounds, not finding anything that would be sympathetic with the original in the rear parlor.
On a trip to Buffalo, NY, we stopped into a salvage yard and pored over the various building remnants, bits of antique moldings, and exquisite door hardware. The owner did have a nice collection of old tiles and we purchased a quantity of them without any exact plans for the tiles we bought. Tom took a client call on his cell phone and headed out to the car to talk, so I lingered a bit longer, opening random boxes and peeking inside. Old books, porcelain doll parts, and various sets of china wrapped in newspaper failed to retain my interest. The last box I opened before heading out the door arrested me for a moment, but I resumed my bored expression, and slowly walked out to the car.
When I told Tom to check out the box just inside the door, I also warned him of what he would find. We were careful not to show too much excitement, as we had learned that by doing so would cause the price to triple or even quadruple. The set of tiles in the box exactly matched the tiles surrounding the fireplace of the rear parlor. In addition, it was a complete set, and undamaged. Though we had the other tiles we had purchased that day shipped back to us, this set we hand-carried back on the plane with us — too precious to risk losing it now that we had found it. It now sits in its pre-destined final home in our front parlor.
Our new front porch, as well, needed a tile treatment. All of the other original front porches in town sported beautiful encaustic and geometric tile floors. When it came to the pattern, we looked to the vestibule for inspiration, as it traditionally repeated the pattern on the porch. The tiles were ordered from England and shipped to us in many dozens of boxes. The CADD drawing accompanied the boxes of tiles. We laid out the initial pattern according to the drawing, but were having a hard time seeing how it fit. We then discovered that the CADD measurements didn’t match the measurements of the porch. After inquiring about the discrepancy, we were told that the pattern we wanted wouldn’t fit the measurements we provided, so they changed the measurements to fit the pattern. Genius! Now if only we could change the ACTUAL measurements of the porch to fit the new drawing. Tom took pencil to graph paper, and after many frustrating hours of working with what they had given us, managed to work out a new pattern that was absolutely perfect.
After hours of laying tile, cleaning, grouting, cleaning, sealing, cleaning, etc. we finally had a beautiful porch floor that worked perfectly with the vestibule pattern. It was strange to be so exposed for a renovation project, out front and visible to all as we worked. It was comical to field questions from passers-by who assumed we were the hired workers as they asked us about the house we were working on. The house is on the walking tour, so there are frequent out-of-town visitors walking by, taking photos. When asked, we always played dumb and pretended not to know a thing about the people who owned the place. We would simply shrug our shoulders, raise our eyebrows, and circle a finger around one ear in the universal sign for “crazy” while making a wide gesture to include the entire house. This was typically met with sympathetic nods of agreement as the out-of-towners would then move along gazing up in wonder at the immensity of the project.
The one upside of the CADD measurement debacle was that we ended up with extra tiles, and an entire extra “medallion” pattern. This allowed us to create the identical pattern on the newly-rebuilt smaller front porch floor, so that it also matched the front porch.
As a testament to our ultimate addiction, we make regular visits to our favorite salvage yard. Yes, we DO have a favorite salvage yard. It is a cavernous warehouse of a place outside of Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, in Scranton, called Olde Good Things. We make ourselves feel better by calling this place an “Architectural Antiques Warehouse” but in truth it is an enormous dirty jumble of a salvage operation with the most unique and fascinating building parts. Its dusty and grimy and objects are piled everywhere, high on shelves, squeezed into hallways, and buried in back rooms. Expect to get dirty here, and a measuring tape and pair of work gloves are helpful accessories. The variety of house and building parts is mind boggling, and the sheer volume of any type of salvage material is overwhelming. When looking for doors, for example, we had quite literally thousands to choose from.
We entered this familiar place from the rear parking lot, bypassing my favorite iron yard outside, and wandered down the ramp. Lined with myriad fancy terra-cotta building blocks, this leads us past the main office, where we wave to the guys inside as we pass, and grab a dolley to take along with us. Turning left, we passed a sea of pedestal sinks, mostly white, with the occasional pink, blue and sea-foam green specimen dotting the monotony. above, stained glass windows, dusty and cracked filtered the light and gave the entire warehouse a multi-colored hue. The toilet collection resided on our right, a congregation of commodes, lids often askew and appearing to converse with one another as we turned the corner toward the tile room. Flanking the passage were rows upon rows of marble and wood mantels, each set up with fenders, fire dogs, and grates. A large bin containing patterned tin ceiling tiles sat just outside the entrance, and the smell of turpentine and freshly-sawed wood mingled with the dust, making me sneeze.
The tile room consists of a series of passageways connecting small high-ceilinged rooms, all lined with ceiling to floor shelving, 30-feet high, all stacked with boxes, milk crates, and numerous random types of containers filled with mostly with tiles mixed with small pieces of other random bits of hardware and moldings. As no ladder is provided, I donned my work gloves and started climbing the shelves, leaning in and pulling forward boxes, handing down samples of their contents for Tom to examine. Some boxes were quickly rejected, others, I handed down for closer inspection. It’s like a treasure hunt there — you never know what is inside the next box you open. Clinging to the solid shelving with one hand while carefully transferring a laden milk crate with the other is hard and tiring work, so that by the time we have finished picking the shelves and bend down to sort our finds, I am sweaty and dirty.
Olde Good Things makes new things out of old things, such as mirror frames out of tin ceiling tiles, and painted chests out of discarded old furniture. They sell these wares at Eastern Market in D.C., and their travel route takes them within a mile of our house. This gives us one unique advantage of free shipping for anything we buy. The large amounts of tiles we collect from their warehouse are delivered practically to our door in Falls Church, where we store them, then transport them little by little down to Danville, our trunk loaded with every trip.
The Chestnut Place entrance porch was added some time in the 1940s and was built as a slab of poured concrete. Our mason, Tommy Davis, cut out the center, leaving the edge. Tom created and installed a beautiful pattern with Encaustic and Geometrics for that entry. It now looks more like it was built in the 1870s, sympathetic with the other features of the house.
We also added a rear porch for better access to the pool and for a place to relax in the Summertime. The tile from this pattern that Tom created came from a church in New Jersey that had succumbed to fire. Olde Good Things salvaged as many tiles as possible from that structure, and we happened to be there the day they arrived at the warehouse. Needless to say, our basement is now overflowing with crates full of salvaged tiles of all shapes and colors. This porch will eventually be ringed with lacy ironwork, columns, and a slate roof. We found and purchased a complete iron porch from Governor’s Antiques in Richmond, and have been waiting for our welder, C.G. (the ONLY welder who we will allow to touch our antique iron) to finish with some large commercial jobs and put it up for us. We’ve been waiting two years now, but we are very patient people.
As I stack the milk crates full of tile onto heavy-duty metal racks in the basement, I massage my poor torn rotator cuff, wondering if my days of climbing warehouse shelving and manipulating boxes of tiles might be at an end. Like all addictions, we push onward, through the pain, so that we can continue to enjoy these crazy past-times. Tom and I spend hours sometimes pondering just the right place for our next tile project, playing around with various tile designs, patterns, and borders. I see him eyeing the pool area pensively, and wonder what patterns are forming in his head.
In the meantime, if there is ever a twelve-step program, I think I will politely decline. After all, being a Tile Junkie is not the worst thing in the world.
Carla Minosh
While I am new to Blogging, I have always enjoyed sharing the stories of my crazy life, so this is simply another medium to share, and hopefully entertain and enrich others. Perhaps you can feel thankful that your life is so steady and predictable after reading these, perhaps you can appreciate the insanity and wish you had more of it in your life. Either way, the crazy tales are all true (to the best of my spotty recollection) and simply tell the tale of a life full of exploration, enthusiasm, curiosity and hard work. I hope you all enjoy being a part of the journey.
Hi,
This is a great project, would be happy to have you consider our work for inclusion if it is appropriate. I can probably give you history notes on the historic tile.
Best regards,
don
http://www.lesperancetileworks.com
There are but these words:
TOO YUMMY!