Insane tiled walls!
June 22, 2006 8:08 AM Subscribe
Wacky Tiled Walls, need cheap creative solution...For some strange reason the entire apartment is tiled! To make matters worse in each room there are about 4 or 5 different style of tiles. I need a cheap creative solution to make the apartment more home like and less like one big bathroom. Anyone? Please help!
Use contact paper (like drawer liners with sticky backs) as wall paper?
posted by rmless at 8:16 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by rmless at 8:16 AM on June 22, 2006
cheap wood paneling. apply it with a few thin beads of silicone caulk, which will peel off the tile fairly easily if you ever need to remove it. available in a large number of patterns and styles. usually comes in 4x8 sheets.
posted by cosmicbandito at 8:21 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by cosmicbandito at 8:21 AM on June 22, 2006
Are they real, ceramic tiles?
Our son's room had some kind of fakey linoleum tile stuck to one wall. With the curved ceiling, his room looked like a Toronto subway station.
Super-adhesive primer, a coat of paint and a small wood trim around the walls and now it looks awesome, the tile under the paint just looks like a cool textured wall.
posted by chococat at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2006
Our son's room had some kind of fakey linoleum tile stuck to one wall. With the curved ceiling, his room looked like a Toronto subway station.
Super-adhesive primer, a coat of paint and a small wood trim around the walls and now it looks awesome, the tile under the paint just looks like a cool textured wall.
posted by chococat at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2006
I watch waaaayyy too many British home decorating shows. Something I've often seen them use to update a bathroom or kitchen are tile transfers. This company iselling paper that you could use to make your own.
posted by Sara Anne at 8:27 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by Sara Anne at 8:27 AM on June 22, 2006
Another vote for contact paper. I have heinous yellow tile in my bathroom and successfully covered it with nice white contact paper. Just be very careful when unrolling and smoothing it and of course measure the space very carefully!
posted by superfem at 9:00 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by superfem at 9:00 AM on June 22, 2006
Can you take a photo and upload it somewhere we can see? I'd love to see how bad this is, I've never heard of anything like it before.
posted by mathowie at 9:15 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by mathowie at 9:15 AM on June 22, 2006
It seems to me that contact paper would follow the contours of the tile, so anyone looking at the wall could tell what was beneath. How cheap is cheap? You could hang fabric from the ceiling and tack it at the floor, go with wood paneling as cosmicbandito suggested, or put drywall over it and paint. Any of these solutions, depending on how many rooms you want to de-tile, will cost in the hundreds.
Seriously, the whole apartment? That's just messed up.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:17 AM on June 22, 2006
Seriously, the whole apartment? That's just messed up.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:17 AM on June 22, 2006
In my previous apartment we had really cheap plastic tile in the bathroom. Its was very uneven and some of it was broken or missing. It had been previously painted over, so we decided to paint a different color, and used a 2-color technique similar to this one except using just a rag to apply the glaze. The resulting random pattern hid the tiles to the point that you could hardly notice them.
posted by bradn at 9:21 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by bradn at 9:21 AM on June 22, 2006
oops....on my link above, click the first "learn more" link, then "Sponging On."
posted by bradn at 9:23 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by bradn at 9:23 AM on June 22, 2006
Wallpapering is pretty easy to do yourself, after getting past the idea that it's hard. Thickish paper would hide the tile outlines, and you can paint over wallpaper when you want a change. But maybe bradn's idea of random paint is simpler.
posted by anadem at 9:42 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by anadem at 9:42 AM on June 22, 2006
Vinyl apliques?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:00 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:00 AM on June 22, 2006
Yes, thirding a picture. I saw a house once that had two or three rooms with walls tiled up to about 8 ft, it was very strange. Drop some drains and fixtures in there and open up a Bath House?
posted by prostyle at 10:43 AM on June 22, 2006
posted by prostyle at 10:43 AM on June 22, 2006
Instead of covering the tiles, could you work with them? Say you have a blue tiled room, you could add other shades of blue mixed with whites and creams for a monochromatic color scheme. In the same blue tiled room you could choose complimentary colors such as raspberry red, chocolate brown, etc. Both methods may look like the tile is intentional.
Another no-brainer way to unify the entire apartment is to use white, ivory, cream, linen, and other natural light colors in every room. You could slipcover your sofa in a light neutral color. Your floor rugs, towels, linens, appliances, accessories, etc. can all be white and/or ivory. Choose things with texture to make it more interesting.
Use artwork, mirrors, and perhaps you could hide some of the tile in your main seating area with a large folding screen. You could place it behind the sofa or use it as a focal point. Also use houseplants and flowers. Nothing makes a home more homey and cheerful in my opinion.
I have also seen decorating shows were they cover walls with fabric. Meters and meters of fabric could be very pricey though. The fabric should be substantial, such as canvas.
posted by LoriFLA at 11:37 AM on June 22, 2006
Another no-brainer way to unify the entire apartment is to use white, ivory, cream, linen, and other natural light colors in every room. You could slipcover your sofa in a light neutral color. Your floor rugs, towels, linens, appliances, accessories, etc. can all be white and/or ivory. Choose things with texture to make it more interesting.
Use artwork, mirrors, and perhaps you could hide some of the tile in your main seating area with a large folding screen. You could place it behind the sofa or use it as a focal point. Also use houseplants and flowers. Nothing makes a home more homey and cheerful in my opinion.
I have also seen decorating shows were they cover walls with fabric. Meters and meters of fabric could be very pricey though. The fabric should be substantial, such as canvas.
posted by LoriFLA at 11:37 AM on June 22, 2006
Are there drains in all the floors? If so, maybe you should bring in forensics.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 12:35 PM on June 22, 2006
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 12:35 PM on June 22, 2006
Fourth vote for pictures. I'd love to see how this looks.
posted by limeonaire at 1:41 PM on June 22, 2006
posted by limeonaire at 1:41 PM on June 22, 2006
maybe you should bring in forensics
Yeah, I'm definitely getting Jame Gumb vibes here. I'm with LoriFLA in that you should attempt (if at all possible) to work with the tile. Any attempt to cover all the walls in an apartment is going to be pretty costly, and unless you do it right, it could look pretty bad. I'd go for accentuating it, frankly. You could install a (non-working, obvs) toilet in the living room, use shower curtains for, um, curtains, and put little towel hooks/toothbrush holders everywhere.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:38 PM on June 22, 2006
Yeah, I'm definitely getting Jame Gumb vibes here. I'm with LoriFLA in that you should attempt (if at all possible) to work with the tile. Any attempt to cover all the walls in an apartment is going to be pretty costly, and unless you do it right, it could look pretty bad. I'd go for accentuating it, frankly. You could install a (non-working, obvs) toilet in the living room, use shower curtains for, um, curtains, and put little towel hooks/toothbrush holders everywhere.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:38 PM on June 22, 2006
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posted by Cool Alex at 8:12 AM on June 22, 2006