Lazarus Tiles

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Lazarus Tiles

Lazarus Tiles is all about documenting and giving vintage Maltese tiles a new life.

26/08/2026

One corner up from Hollywood | Oġġetti Sbieħ • Beautiful Objects on Republic Street sits Casa Rocca Piccola. Compared to many other palaces in Valletta with their grand Baroque facades, one might be forgiven for walking past, distracted by so many sights to tick off when visiting Valletta.
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Though what is so special about this place is that it has resisted the touristification of so many other spots in the capital. It is a home that is still lived in, full of eccentric artworks and dusty corners and a joyful lack of information plaques.
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For me, of course, I walked through the enfilades with my eyes often fixed downwards, admiring the myriad of colours and textures of their cement tile floors. It’s quite unique in that respect, for the palace must have been remodelled at some point in the 19th century when this technology arrived in Malta.
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It’s open to visit daily except Sundays and if you book a guided tour you might be lucky enough to have the Marquis de Piro join in!
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Casa Rocca Piccola

03/08/2026

Now here’s a woman who loves her tiles.
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I drove down to Ħaż-Żabbar to collect some tiles which had been reclaimed 30 years ago during a home renovation and were never used. Michelle had put them aside but after gathering dust for so long she thought they needed a better home.
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After loading them into my car, knowing that I love exploring beautiful homes, she invited me in to take a look and wow, what a house it is! Besides the beauty of the house itself, it was just such a joy to visit a home that has been given so much love over the years.
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Here’s a selection of her wonderfully eclectic floor patterns, with lots of marbling to boot. I had saved a few tiles from a nearby house with the same pattern and marbling. There must have been a master tile-maker in the area.
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Long may the house enjoy so much care.

02/07/2026

Absolute new fave.
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I spotted this brilliant pattern at the Vilhena Band Club in Floriana. The arches of St Anne’s Street we’re so used to driving past have some beautiful marble palladiana (large terrazzo) floors but I was so happy to find a pattern I’d never seen when I explored the inside.
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What’s amazing about this pattern is that the mould would have been the same one used for a more common variant (see photos 3 and 4) but just filled differently. I suppose you could think about it as a pixel grid that’s coloured-in to create whatever image you want.
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Though I can’t imagine what it’s like concentrating on creating a floor of over 1,000 tiles when you’re pouring these one by one!

09/11/2025

Just back from and I want to head back again.
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While furiously finishing things off at a few weeks ago, an artist who was dropping stock off saw me hanging a few Lazarus Tiles and told me about ’s upcoming debut exhibition.
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Always up for discovering new work, this got me excited because as a canvas, she had used reclaimed cement tiles! Chatting with the Alison and the curator , they were showing me how the pattern had informed the end result, with both sharing that 20x20cm space.
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I also love the subjects of her work, mostly being infants or young children. Having them painted on tiles sometimes over a century old really cements the idea of their rebirth.

21/10/2025

Lots of you folks are renovating your homes and often get in touch with questions about how to remove your old cement tiles for reuse, so I thought I’d show you how.
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I picked a spot that was super tough - it’s often a lot easier than this but these beauties were very stubborn!
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A word of caution - please exercise extreme caution when doing this over beams and xorok (limestone slabs). The tiles spread your weight over them but once you remove them, you could snap them and go straight through. Definitely don’t be hammering away in this way either. Always follow the advice of your architect or builder.
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As always, feel free to get in touch with any questions. Happy renovating!
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12/06/2025

Sometimes you can find beautiful things in unexpected places.
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When foreign friends visit, one of my favourite spots to take them to is a little cove along Malta’s northern coast underneath Għar Tuta. It’s walkable, but lots more fun to kayak to from Paradise Bay.
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It’s a tiny concrete ramp which must have been laid many decades ago. Further in are a few crumbling boathouses and one of them was built underneath a giant rock. Nature has taken the place back, filling it with fennel, wild carrots and hardy succulents. There isn’t much left of it but what IS left is some sort of a threshold made up of mismatched cement tiles.
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They’re all lovely patterns and hard to tell which colours exactly after years sitting out in the harsh sun. But in their desaturated eclectisism they are beautiful nonetheless.

22/05/2025

The best kind of renovation.
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Feast your eyes on these floors! This home in Birkirkara forms part of an elegant row of mid-century townhouses. The floors feature a variety of patterns in muted and pastel tones and when works beckoned, so did danger.
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Luckily for these tiles, the owners were immovable on their desire to retain and restore the floors as an essential part of the fabric of their house.
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Some had to be removed entirely to pass new drains and electrics but the tiles were carefully dug out, cleaned and relaid, some in new configurations, but almost all retained.
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Suffice to say, this makes me very happy.

28/04/2025

Up close and beautiful.
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I’ve been working on some orders recently and I’m so glad that they’re destined for so many exciting destinations - California, Sarajevo, Staffordshire, Melbourne, Florence - they’re better travelled than I am.
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At the same time I’ve been busy saving as many as I have the time and energy for. It’s tiring, though once cleaned up, it’s so worthwhile.
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Check out some recent finds which have been saved from the landfill and which, after some TLC, are now ready for their new homes all over the world.
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Some new editions have been added to the website at LazarusTiles.com so check them out!

12/03/2025

I love spotting tile patterns in vintage photographs.
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The carried a fascinating article by Giovanni Bonello about pre-war advertising postcards which were a mix of photographs, semi-illustrated photographs and illustrated poster-style adverts. In the first photo you can see the dining room from the Hotel d’Angleterre on St Lucy Street and Strait Street.
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The writing about Maltese cuisine back then was quite entertaining and especially ironic, coming from the British. Judge Bonello writes how Gladys Peto was unimpressed by the food served in Malta in 1928. Even when not positively awful, something was almost always wrong with it: “It tasted Maltese.”
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Well, scathing reviews aside, I looked down, as always. Lo behold, the Orkida pattern, though hard to be sure if it’s the red variety since the photo is in black and white. I’d bet it is though, since it was a popular colour and the use of a singular motif in red on a white background was often used.
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In the last photo you can see a variety of similar patterns, (from top left CW) Silla Ħamra from Ħal Qormi, Aniżetta Ħamra from Sliema, Papoċċ Aħmar from Ħal Balzan and Orkida Ħamra from Ħaż-Żabbar

11/02/2025

Check out these fantastic four I’ve just added to the site.
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Salvaged from Paola, Balluta, Attard and Żurrieq, these gorgeous tiles hail from the north, south, east and west of Malta.
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Although a little sad that they’re not in their original homes, they all come from buildings that are undergoing restoration which couldn’t include their retention. Mostly a happy story then, which is always a relief.
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Available from LazarusTiles.com or just message me for an appointment at my Msida workshop to see them in person.

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http://www.lazarustiles.com/

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