One of the reasons that I liked this house so much was because it still had the original hex tile floor. One of the things I hate most about this house is trying to keep it clean. The floor is full of grout lines and enough nooks and crannies to rival an english muffin. This leaves all kinds of places for dirt to hang out.In addition to this the tiles don’t seem to have any sheen to them which makes it easy for all of this dirt to cling to and stain the tiles. Even after washing and scrubbing down the floors they would often look like this.
![DSCN0111[1]](https://ittybittybungalow.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dscn01111.jpg)
Then I had an idea… what if I tried some toliet bowl cleaner on the floor?
![DSCN0120[1]](https://ittybittybungalow.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dscn01201.jpg)
Awesome right? I used the Lysol brand in a gel formula. After I washed the tile I squirted on just a small amount and then used a scrub brush to scrub the tile lightly. It even helped clean out the grout lines. After scrubbing, I left the bathroom for about 15 minutes and allowed the bleach to work. When I returned I wiped up the floor with a paper towel and re-washed the floor to clean up any haze. The cleaner did not harm my black tiles but did a remarkable job removing any stains on the white ones.
Victory!
Ittybittybungalow 
Now that it’s clean, should it be waxed?
I don’t know… I haven’t heard of ceramic tile being waxed before. Have you done it in the past?
I was wondering the same thing. I don’t know about wax though. It might yellow or cause the floor to be too slippery. But some kind of sealant.
No, I’ve never waxed tile, but I was just wondering about, as Gloria mentioned, some sort of sealer. Probably the original finish was resistant to staining and seems to have worn off.
I just went looking on the web, and there seems to be some controversy about this tile. Some people have success with cleaning and are happy, some people say they never get theirs clean. So if it were me, I’d wait and see how long yours stays clean before I thought about doing anything else…just imho.
Meanwhile, I ran across a picture of light beige hex tile and was immediately consumed with envy and plans, since I have to replace my bathroom flooring. Then I realized, too bad the fixtures are all blue :-).
I have the just put the off-white/beige hex tiles in my upstairs bathroom(have original white ones downstairs) and one of the things i found when researching was where people had pulled some of the off-white ones out & added a color…either to make a border or make the flowers sometimes seen in old houses….maybe you could add some blue.
That’s an interesting idea!
I installed porcelain hex tiles in a bathroom and sealed them with a product recommended by the folks at the tile store. It was expensive but much, much more effective than the stuff at Lowes or Home Depot. Keeping the floor clean is just not a problem. But thanks for the tip about using toilet bowl cleaner on floor tiles!