Hi,
It looks like you're in for a lot of hand-scraping. I would be reluctant to sand the tile. If you do, use a random-orbit sander and diamond discs (not pads, they are for polishing, not leveling) of 150/220/400 grit. Discs are a copper metal flexible, with dots of diamond applied. They cut very well. The 400 should leave you with a matte finish.
For the grout, I'd get a narrow screwdriver and file it to the width of the grout joints, and then round the edge off so it scrapes a slightly concave contour, then there will be no sharp corner to scratch the tile, and it should follow the valley of the grout seam.
It looks like the kind of tile that is the same color all the way through, but if it's glazed and you start to hit another color, you will probably have to live with it, buy a nice area rug, or replace the floor.
There are some great reproduction tiles out there.
Casey

Here is a link that might be useful: American Restoration Tile

Hi Casey, thanks for your response. I remember you from the kitchen forum; we redid our kitchen last summer. I'm a stoner too! Your kitchen turned out amazing.

I'm virtually certain that the color goes all the way through the tile.

Scraping all those grout lines! Yowza. I think it might be necessary, but I'm going to do my best to clean them up first; they don't have to look new, just not cruddy!

I've done this one time, back when I was an apprentice, and if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it then, either. My sisters went to a private school in Milford, Ct., and we had gone to some school function this one evening, and afterward, there was "coffee and..." down in the school cafeteria. While we were down there, my father was talking to the principle of the school about the floor. They had vinyl asbestos tile, that had been put down over white hex tile, using that black asbestos "cutback" glue. At this point alot of the VA tiles were beginning to come loose, and the principle told my father why they'd done it in the first place. Apparently, 15 years prior to this (mid 60's), they'd installed the serving areas in the cafeteria, and when they did, they had to dig a trench thru the tile for drainage to the serving area. Unfortunately, they couldn't find any hex tile to match, nor anyone who'd be willing to take on such a small job, so they ended up covering about 2000 square feet of this hex tile that had been set in 1911 with the VA tile. WELL! My father, being the pack rat that he was, had cartons of this tile at the shop, and volunteered my services as a donation from the company. For the next three days, I was there with a respirator, first scaling up the VA tile, which came up in about 6 hours, and then soaking sawdust with DRY CLEANING FLUID, and then using the sawdust to remove that black cutback glue from the tile. THAT took better than two days to do, and believe me, even with the respirator, I had a wicked headache at the end of the day each day!! DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDDIES!!

What I might recommend to you is to find someone who does marble floor refinishing. He'll be able to make that entire floor look like brand new, including feathering in one side to the other at that crack. I would NOT recommend laying any more tile in that area, though. The fact that one side of the crack is higher than the other indicates that there's vertical movement in that floor, and there's not a membrane around that would protect any tile bridging that crack, from cracking. Not even Ditra would help.

WOW! I am doubly glad that I didn't run into that black adhesive, just sticky yellow stuff that came up with the soy formula. What a job that must have been!

And thanks for the suggestion. I'll look for someone who does marble.

Hi! It was me who directed you here from the Old House Forum. I can't help you with your floor because the one that I uncovered had the black adhesive (water soluble), and also because after living with it for a couple of years while our project stalled I decided to replace it. We just got tired of seeing the crack and uneven mortar bed. Its all being ripped up and replaced with similar new hex. A crack is easier to live with in the entry way.

Hope you are able to clean it up and salvage the original tile.

Hi, Lauren, and thanks, I hope I can too.

I've soaked half the area in another bath of the soy product that I'm using and then scraped away at it. It takes some elbow grease, but the mastic is dissolving and coming up. I tried acetone on a couple of tiles and it works very well, but phew! I'd rather work harder without fumes. Maybe I'll use acetone on the very last, impossible blobs.

That half of the foyer looks better than the other half, though, so I am making progress.

I am also waiting for a call back from a floor guy. I have two other easy tiling projects in this house, and they take precedence over hammering up the vestibule tile. You're right, in an entry it's much less dire, especially since I can put a mat right over the worst of it.