Timeless elegance at your feet

Founded with a passion for history and design, our Ohio-based company specialises in sourcing and restoring exquisite reclaimed antique tile floors from Western Europe, mainly France and Belgium.

Our carefully curated collections feature stunning ceramic encaustic tiles, many dating back to the height of the Art Nouveau period. These award-winning handmade productions, originally crafted by skilled artisans in the late 19th and early 20th century, showcase intricate patterns, many displaying their stunning motifs in four tile tessellations.

Their quality is unquestionable, the result of the pouring and firing of deep slip colors which produced thick, heavy tiles that delivered both design excellence and a quality that modern mass-produced ceramics simply cannot match. Many of our floors retain their original double or triple border tiles, which exquisitely framed the floors, and some exhibit a rich patina that enhances their character without compromising their durability. Our tiles, originally highly fired productions, over 1,100F degrees, lend themselves to being laid inside or outside of the home.

An antique floor is more than just a design choice—it’s a piece of history, an investment that adds lasting value to your home or business. So, whether you’re a homeowner looking for a distinctive touch or a designer sourcing floors for a café, restaurant, or commercial space, we’re here to help bring timeless European elegance to your project.

About our tiles

Dating from c.1850 to 1910, our fully restored tiles have been reclaimed from fine period properties, mainly in France and Belgium. Hand-made in labor intensive production processes by award winning ceramic houses, that employed hundreds of employees, only a few of these manufacturers, like Boch Frères, still trade today.

Once reclaimed, each tile is restored to its original beauty with the removal of old mortar from their reverse and sides and wax and dirt from their faces. Each tile is quality-checked, ensuring durability for decades to come. The small number of tiles with small chips or edge nibbles are included as these small defaults can be grouted and importantly add to the beautiful charm and antique patina desired.

The result is that the installed floor creates the ambience of being 100 years old, in all its magnificence, while also being robust for another 100 years of use.

Heritage and Dating

We can, for most of our antique floors, determine the history of our tiles by the following means: -

• Antique Catalogues & Publications – Using original historic catalogues, publications and academic papers available to us to identify maker, date and model.
• International ceramic experts – there are academic experts in Europe who can assist with identifying period ceramic tiles like Dr Mario Baeck at The University of Ghent, Belgium.
• Tile Markings – Identifying producers from markings on the tiles reverse – maker, location, date or stamp.
• ‘Detective work’ – Determining the original properties construction date. This can be supplemented with any anecdotes from the property owner as tiles were often laid when the home was built.
• Period Styles – Recognizing era-specific designs, like art nouveau or gothic revival patterns, which will narrow date ranges of the tiles production.

Why choose us?

• Each of our antique floors is unique, they are rare, one-off reclaimed and restored ceramic floors. They arrive ready to relay.
• We offer a wide and growing selection of antique floors to cater for different surface area requirements.
• All our antique floors available are in Ohio, USA. This means that they have been US customs cleared, duty paid and are ready to ship with a short lead time for delivery.
• We offer more than simply selling a product, we can offer a full-service solution to fit your needs. The French Antique Tile company can assist you, without obligation, in looking at the potential fit of the floor in your chosen area with the production of technical drawings, so that you can not only see the layout but beneficially the tiler will have a technical floor plan for the laying of the floor.
• We can also provide samples of our beautiful tiles so you can see their beauty and quality first-hand.