Tiles break from time to time – when installing a new faucet or when a perfume bottle falls. But what to do, when there are no reserves and the tiler from back then has long since retired? Do a complete bathroom or kitchen renovation? That's way too expensive! The rescue comes from Hamburg.
Also, tile, that we are looking for, is 15 x 20 cm tall and 4 mm dick. It's white and has a pattern like that, as if someone had pushed in with their thumb and wiped, Do you understand?“, explains the white-haired gentleman. With an expectant look, he and his wife are standing at the counter in Konrad Schittek's tile shop. here, so they had heard, Should you get tiles?, which are no longer available in stores. “You are correctly informed”, the friendly employee confirms and consults the hand file. It rattles as it leafs through, it scrapes and crunches, because the card,.cards” are tiles and
always sorted in groups according to the usual sizes in the same color gradient. In the face of an impressive stack of white tiles with nuanced patterns, the couple from the district of Se-geberg becomes unsure. Perhaps the indentations are more in the shape of raindrops?
Konrad Schittek is familiar with these difficulties and therefore always advises them: "Bring a tile! A fragment is enough, but we must be able, Compare pattern and color with our file.” The man thinks in terms of tile patterns and has countless manufacturers- and decor names in mind. That is not a matter of course, if you know, that the trained musician once played the clarinet and saxophone in a symphony orchestra. He also painted on the side – as a hobby at first, but soon ready for exhibition. Because he also painted tiles, a friend asked, if he could make a tile for him. The attempt succeeded, so that soon the next interested party came, which others followed.
A new business idea was born more or less by accident.
“No country is as crazy about tiles as Germany”, knows Konrad Schittek, "But there is no availability guarantee, as there is with porcelain or cutlery, for example." It really got off to a good start with the tiles in Ludwig Erhard's time, the economic miracle did not stop at bathrooms either. A lot has changed. Where the bathing stove used to be heated once a week, today the pool whirls in an "adventure oasis" with elaborately and expensively designed tiled areas.
"I know people, hers 30 Lovingly care for year-old tiles. Since a broken tile is a drama. The owners are overjoyed, if they get a replacement from us", says the tile specialist. To also make individual tiles, There are three kilns available. As an autodidact he knows everything about firing clay- and ceramic tiles and has familiarized himself with the chemistry of colors and glazes. Well-known brand companies order custom-made products "Made by Schittek".
Since over 20 years, tiles have determined his life. On trips across the country, he acquires remaining stocks or goods from bankruptcies. The stock has grown so much over the years, that he has exceeded the capacities of the company headquarters in Hamburg. In the old country, the fruit-growing area at the gates of the Hanseatic city, he moved into a converted cow and pigsty. The halls behind fit into the landscape. Instead of apples, like the neighbors, stored there in unbelievable sizes-, Muster- and variety of colors industrial tiles from the last 40 Years – five floors high, each pallet weighing 1,8 metric tons. The Lord of the Tiles maintains close contact with manufacturers and speaks regularly with experts from DIY stores, Tile shops and laying companies. “This exchange is important, because I always have to keep an eye on it, which tiles have met the taste of the time. After all, the probability of demand plays an important role for my offer.” Among those in the know, it has long been considered an insider tip, but the Schittek name also has a good reputation in the claims departments of German insurance companies. It's appreciated there, replacing individual tiles, when the alternative is total renovation.
some hand- and do-it-yourselfers come personally to the small town behind the Elbe dike, where the unusual tile trade keeps eight other people in wages and bread in addition to the boss. Two thirds of the business is done by mail. Fragments of tile come in daily and the hand file reveals, if what you want is available. Inquiries also come from Holland, France and Austria.
That one is lost without a pattern, finally the couple from Segeberg also saw it. They would never have believed, that there are so many different white patterned tiles. awesome, but also shaken in the belief in one's own ability to remember, leave the house. The name Schittek is engraved in her memory. And tomorrow they will send off their sample tiles.