On the Hunt for Rectified Hexagon Tile

THE FARMHOUSE

I’ve been dreaming of a hexagon tile floor in our Farmhouse primary bathroom for years. Maybe one with an inlaid pattern. Maybe tiny little one inch hex or maybe a tad-more-modern two inch. White? Black? Marble? Probably one of those! And definitely tiles with a rectified edge. It turns out that rectified edge isn’t as easy to come by as I expected these days, so I thought I’d share what we’re found so far. And this is nowhere near an exhaustive search, so if you have other ideas for us, please spill!

Some of you are probably wondering what a rectified edge is, so let’s start there. Rectified tiles have a square edge that’s nearly perfect. There’s no big bevel on the corners. In the old houses we’ve done with original tile, those tiles all had a rectified edge. So that’s a detail we wanted to pull into our primary bathroom. The tile certainly won’t be 100+ years old and it may not look exactly original, but we do want it to have a nod to the past and the rectified edge should help with that.

psst: we’re also using dark-stained wood board and batten in this bathroom!

Okay let’s talk about what the tiles have here…

1” and 2” rectified hexagon tile. These were a recommendation from Paige at @hellohilltop (who’s renovating her own bathroom with rectified hex tile). They came out of a shop in Spokane and we can pass that source along if you DM/email us. They’re thin and a little off-white so I’m not sure they’ll work for us.
3”x6” marble subway tile, Tile Shop - This is an almost-pure white marble subway tile we are thinking about using in the shower. Can’t you see a field of these with a thin black or gray marble “pencil bead” tile (made that name up) running through them?
Octagon zellige tile, Clé x Zio and Sons - I ordered these because I LOVE them! The main pattern is octagon tiles with the small squares in-between and that pretty border would find it’s way somewhere. It’s a classic pattern but I’m not entirely sure handmade zellige tiles belong in this 110-year-old Farmhouse but they’re the tiles of my dreams. The question is, would I still love them in 20 years…? They’re not exactly a trend but they’re really popular right now and that always gives me pause.
Polished marble 1” hex, Tile Shop - these are classic looking hex but with the fun of marble. They’re polished so have a nice shine to them when the light hits just right. We could easily add a pattern with darker marble 1” tiles too.
Honed marble 2” hex, Tile Shop - I absolutely love this marble. Like love love love! It reminds me of our kitchen countertops and has a nice amount of variation but not too much. I guess my one concern is whether we want the more-modern feel of 2” hex. I’m inclined to say yes, but we’ll see. We could also add a nice pattern with darker marble tiles, which would be fun.

That’s what we’ve been drawn to so far. Here are a few inspiration images so you can see more of the look we’re going for…