QWe have a 15-year-old swimming pool that has shed some of its trim tiles. Town & Country, the company that built it, has no replacements. Do you know of a company that stocks old swimming pool trim tiles?
Alexandria
AThe simplest solution might be to have new tiles custom-made. One company that specializes in this is Arcana Tileworks in Winter Garden, Fla. (407-876-1613, arcanatileworks.com). The company makes all kinds of tiles, including historical designs with relief shapes and flat bathroom and kitchen tiles. It can match colors, shapes and artistic designs — all services you may need to get pieces for your pool surround.
You’ll need porcelain tiles, which don’t absorb water and therefore stand up to use in a pool surround. And judging from the pictures you sent, it looks as though you will need three glaze colors. “Fortunately, the cobalt blue and white will not be difficult,” Arcana owner Nancy Krug wrote in an email, “but the rust color may not be one we have a formula for, and a custom glaze match may be needed for it.”
Pricing depends on how much work Arcana needs to do. When tiles are a standard size, the company buys pieces and uses those as a base. It also stocks a wide array of glaze colors but custom-mixes when necessary. Custom color matches can take time, Krug warned. “The process involves chemical reactions in a kiln and perhaps multiple customer-approval steps. Glaze matching, unfortunately, cannot be done like paint matches, using a scanner and a computer-generated formula.”
The company usually turns down requests for a single tile in a custom color, and its work on floor tiles is limited to solid-color pieces less than 10 inches across. It cannot match stone-look or wood-look floor tiles.
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To give you a firm quote, Krug would need more details, including the tile sizes, whether there are textures and whether you need the tiles mounted on mesh. Simple wall tiles start at $27 a square foot, plus shipping. Doing a custom glaze match is $80 per color (if Arcana doesn’t already have that color); perfect results cannot be guaranteed. “This job would be significantly more than $27 per square foot, although less than $100 per square foot,” Krug said.
She recommended that you investigate why the tiles came loose before you spend a lot of money on replacement pieces. A pool installer may be able to help with that.
The cloth anchor of a beloved old leather picture frame has ripped, making it impossible to stand the frame on a desk. I’ve tried tape (several kinds), but all pull away because of the outward pressure. Any ideas? Could a bookbinder help, as the backing seems to be bookbinder’s cloth?
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Washington
M.J. Linford, who makes museum-quality pop-up books and other artistic books through her company Bad Girl Press (badgirlpress.com), suggests mending the support flap with book cloth and PVA glue. Both are available from companies that sell to bookbinders, such as Bookmakers Inc. in College Park (301-345-7979, bookmakerscatalog.com). Several types of cloth are available, one of them in 25 colors, so you should be able to find a close match.
Cut a piece of the cloth the same width as the flap but add two or three inches to its length. Move the flap so it is flat with the rest of the backing. Glue the cloth to the flap and, at the top, to the existing backing of your frame. Let the glue dry before you try to move the flap out.
It might even be possible to skip the cloth and just squirt a thick bead of the glue into the gap where the flap has torn off, Linford said. PVA glue remains flexible after it dries. So if your frame simply sits on a desk except when you need to move it to dust, this might be sufficient.
Bookbinders also use adhesive-back cloth tape, but don’t try to substitute that for the combination of book cloth and glue. The cloth tape is made to stick to paper.
Have a problem in your home? Send questions to localliving@washpost.com . Put "How To" in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo.
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