The old high school. It was old and nasty and had to go. all but the works of tile art surrounding 12 drinking fountains.

Gina, Riley, and Larry are the team that took on this project.

The new high school complete with a little bit of the old.

First we had to number every tile on the 12 different fountain backs.

Then Gina Had to carefully cut out the old grout from between the tiles.

Larry does the same on another.

Before air filter

Riley removes the outer edging materials so that the tiles can be lifted from their settings.

To protect the tiles to be removed they are sealed entirely with tape.

Because only the top section is going to be transferred, Riley is able to cut a section of the tile below out, allowing space to work.

The whole section to be removed is framed and supported by wood panels.

Now every tile that has been removed needs to be cleaned up by removing the old mortar.

Removing the mortar is done in a specialized wet environment using diamond saw blades.

Because the old fountains went straight down to the floor and had no bottom framing, Larry needed to cut some of the old tiles to make a new set of corners for the bottom frame..

Throughout the process every piece has be meticulously accounted for. Now they are packaged up and ready to move to their new school.

A diamond in the rough.

6 of the 12 art panels cleaned up and ready to reset.

This is how  the back of the tile looks after the mortar has been removed.

This is how the old tiles were configured.

This is the new abbreviated look complete with new bottom corners and frame that will go in the new school. Every tile looks perfect.