When I purchased my home, I knew I was going to need to completely redo the shower stall since it was leaking into the kitchen. My contractor lovingly removed all of the black and lilac vintage 4 x 4 tile to save for later use.

Come to find now, that when we put in the new backer board (or whatever you call the board in the shower) and new pan, etc. that all this tile will not fit properly! He, is not a tile expert, and when I got to the point to call someone who was he informed me of this situation. Of course, old tile wasn't made like it is now - all uniform and all and the old tile isn't. What a problem this leaves me in.

He's trying to figure out if he'll be able to use it, and if not what am I going to put in it's place? The black, I can probably find a match for - DalTile most likely - I know they make a similar match. But, that lilac I'll never find and the rest of the bathroom is tiled in the same tile. I can not afford to rip out all of the tile in the room at this point and do a renovation of this room. The floor tile, is hex, black, white and lilac. I'm considering just tiling the shower in black and white to be done with it. But, still the cost of buying all that new tile is just killing me too as I'm up to my neck in other renovations in the house and already my budget is nearly double what I expected.

So, does anyone have any good ideas what to do? The shower, thankfully, is separate from the tub, in a small alcove with the toilet in the back of the room so you don't really see the interior when you walk into the space. Maybe it would be fine to swap out the tile for plain white and black? It just kills me to discard the vintage tile

You say he's not a tile expert, so since you love the lilac and it sounds wonderfully vintage, I'd recommend finding a tile expert and having him re-tile the space with what you've salvaged. Best of luck!

Well, your situation is quite critical. You want to renovate your shower but you don't have enough tiles. You said that you have already spent double as you considered to do. In thins situation you can hold your work until you are not ready to spent some more because without uniform tiles you will not be able to fit the tiles, shower, shower pan & backer board perfectly.