The Four Hundred Dollar Backsplash!

After doing the simple job of installing the five tiles as a nice little backsplash behind the deep sink vanity in the mudroom, I decided to do a quick search using images.google.com with the keywords "antique dutch tiles". A bunch of images came up, and seeing a photograph including several similar tiles,  I was astonished to find they sell for between $60 and $120 a piece on the used market. As Michel Buble said recently, "Holy Shitballs"! I now have a four hundred dollar tile backsplash, according the the person who added the comment on my first post on these tiles!

I might add three more of these in a partial second row above the first, without having any duplicates show up, and then decide what to do with the rest. There are about eight more similar to these shown here, a half dozen in blue with flowers, and three larger scenes without the circles, as well as twenty blank ones. I think I might save the six blue ones when I redo the upstairs bathroom, and then sell off the rest. 

Boxes in Attics

For all the bad things I might say about other people who have either done things poorly, or failed to do things properly, on this nice old house, I do have to give credit where it is due. When we moved in ten years ago, I found an old empty chest, a painted crib, a steel bedframe, and a small box which had been left behind in the attic. The box contained a number of tiles, possibly salvaged from the main bathroom when it was gutted and overhauled some time in the 'seventies or 'eighties. The tiles were mostly white, however some of them were hand painted, with an obviously Dutch style, as in the photo below:

Kudos to whoever was smart enough to salvage and save these wonderful tiles! These will be used to make a small backsplash in the mudroom bathroom, and as luck would have it, they complement the paint colour Katherine chose for the walls quite nicely!