Save the original tile. It is in good condition. If you make too many "improvments" the next owners will face the same challenges that you are now facing with the Mediteranean floor tile inserts. You want to restore things you said, not give it an update.

Some things you may have to make concessions with.

Check out sites like http://retrorenovation.com/category/bathroom/

Read '50s renovation blogs like this one too:
http://50sstyle.blogspot.com/search/label/bathroom

Google for more..........

Here is a link that might be useful: Retro Renovation

We've been updating the 3 1/2 baths in our early 60's house. By far the easiest update was to hire a reglazing company to glaze the tiles white. Look in the Yellow Pages under tile reglazing. It's amazing what a difference it has made in our master bath.

We then had the floor retiled and put in a new vanity and mirror, lights, toilet, etc. Part of the issue you're likely to run into is that these type of tiles are set in a lathe and it's a mess to remove. We did a total regut of one bathroom and then decided to reglaze on the next bath.

Bonnieann925- what happens to the grout when tile is reglazed? Does it get glazed too? I think it would look odd if so, but I've never seen the job up close so I don't know. I did see an HGTV show where they sprayed reglazing stuff all over the bath. I don't even know if that is how it is supposed to be done. But it did make me wonder about the grout...

dilly dally- I am still drooling over those bathrooms. I'd take ANY color over the yucky yellowish and brown tile in my master bath- yes even those *fabulous* pink ones! You did convince me to keep the seafoam green bathroom as is, except the floor and vanity of course. But I can't stand the yellow one. It's going... There are some great vanities on that site too. I hope I can find 2 when the time comes.

Meghane, If you really want to drool over vintage bathrooms check out the http://savethepinkbathrooms.com

I know I've posted the link before in other threads but they do keep adding new ones to the line-up almost daily. Get your bib out for the drooling.

Keeping the Seafoam Green one? Yaaaaaay! The yellow one is gorgeous. Please reconsider. Yellow was a very popular color in the '50s. You can work with it. You can. Maybe their is a vintage inspired print fabric shower curtain that can show how to pull all those colors together?

Here is a link that might be useful: Save the Pink Bathrooms

I LOVE the pink bathrooms. Pretty much any color but what I've got.

I was looking at the bathroom again and think the awfulness may be the paint color that PO tried to match to the tile. It resembles chronic smoker's teeth. They had painted the entire bedroom that color too, but I made it turquoise before we even moved in. Maybe if I paint over the icky color it won't look so bad. Definitely willing to try. There is a shower door in this room and I am not sure I can remove it without causing daily floods.

{{gwi:1390358}}

Yeah, I think the Seafoam bathroom is groovy. I'm just gonna change the floor and vanity in there, and hopefully take out the shower door and replace it with a pretty groovy curtain.

{{!gwi}}

Now the problem is that I fell in love with the wall-mounted sinks, but of course they offer NO storage and we have serious storage deficits in both bathrooms. Sigh. Can't win....

I'm having the same problem as you. Previous owners replaced the vanities with 70s and 80s style that don't go with the rest of the bathroom but I'm not really finding anything affordable to replace them with.

To top it off, I like the tile that's there and don't want to mess it up by hacking into the wall to mount a wall-mount sink. All the really plain, euro type vanities cost an arm and a leg.

Getting rid of the yellow paint sounds like a good idea. Actually, I'm seeing white walls in there. I love the idea of a 40s/50s fabric in there. I think you could keep the glass shower door in there but cover it with a fabulous fabric to tie it all together.....gathered at the top like a regular shower curtain, attached with velcro to the door frame.

Here's a fabric called "Tortola" by Chris Stone that I absolutely love. It's a large design. There is a yellow background colorway, also a red, also black. I think the yellow one would be killer in there, but the other ones might work also. I have the same yellow tile in my kitchen and I used the black colorway.

You might not hate the tile insert on the floor with a fabric that becomes the focal point. This ebay seller usually has yardage as well as the pillows etc that she sells. I've done business with her. She sends samples. Check out the yellow colorway and also others at her ebay store.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tortola fabric

Good for you for wanting to keep to the era of the bathrooms! I am a firm believer in keeping kitchens and baths in synch with the original architecture of the house (within reason of course). It just looks "wrong" to me otherwise. And the bonus is it doesn't go out of style and need re-doing 10 years later.

That said, I would keep the tile in the master bath too if it's original. You could play around with paint colors and towels and such to see if you can make it more appealing to you. I saw a decorating show of some sort once where someone had a funky 1950-ish tile job, and with the right wall color and towels, it looked pretty good. Someone here could probably steer you in the right direction w/respect to colors. That would be much easier than dealing with re-doing the tile. It's worth a shot first, because once you touch those tiles there's no going back.

Meghane, I love the idea of re-tiling the floors with white hex/colored accent tiles! (You know, those hexagonal flowers?) Maybe changing the vanities out. One thing you might try instead is making them look old, by replacing the door/drawer panels with radiator cover mesh and changing out the hardware, to get that retro vibe. If you need the storage, it would be insanity to get pedestal sinks.

The glass shower door looks good, it's functional, and the tub is reglazed, so..if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I agree that I would try new wall paint/towels/a purely decorative shower curtain to tie in the wall tiles instead. I personally like the yellow tiles. Those weird combos were very fifties, why not embrace them? You could even use brown accent tiles in the master bath. OR you could reglaze the brown tiles to black, if you truly hate them. Maybe you would like yellow and black better?

I love the seafoam green! In my grandparent's only bathroom, they had seafoam green tiles with black tiles on top. They had that exact mirror/light, with a square pedestal sink. I think they had some weird asbestos floor tile. You can skip that! :)

Meghane,
To answer your question about what happens to the grout when the tiles are professionally reglazed, it gets glazed also. I can snap a close up if you'd like to see it.

We had the vintage pink and don't miss it at all. Now it's all white with a new tile floor and Blue Thistle walls. It looks so much cleaner and up to date.

Did you see what we did in our 1950 bathroom? See the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: 1950 bathroom update

I'm so glad Harriet linked her bath -- definitely check it out along with the Save the Pink Bathrooms link!

I actually love the tile work in both your baths so am not much help with replacement ideas (agree about your floor inserts, though). IMO you are so lucky to have this great piece of history in your older home!

In fact, I just got done *adding* very pale yellow tile to my very dark bathroom so I'm EXTRA biased, ha. I'm not a yellow person, truly, but the room wanted it, so:

In testing paint colors there were so many that worked for me. Given your yellow with terracotta accent you could test:
* blue-greens/aquas or sky blues
* sage-y or olive greens
* lavender or plum
* pale cream or the yellow of the tile

I'm a broken record on this, but an easy way to look for paint combos to try is to look at vintage posters online....

Here is a link that might be useful: AllPosters link for color inspiration

Wow, thank you all for helping broadening my mind! I was so stuck on the "I hate this yellow" thing that I couldn't see anything beyond getting rid of the yellow.

After looking at the bathroom in brighter natural light, the problem is definitely not the tile, but the paint. All I have to do is paint over the smoker's teeth yellow, and everything will be fine:) Just have to decide on the color now. I like the light turquoise blue I used for the master bedroom:

Harriethomeowner- your bathroom is gorgeous. I would have never thought to use that style vanity in a retro bath but it really works. Must be something with the curve of the sink- it works! Thanks to all for showing me many many options and especially harrriethomeowner for the beautiful makeover keeping original tile.

Meghane -- thank you! We're really happy with how our bathroom turned out.

I think some shade of blue might work in yours, a la house vixen's posters.