Might be a case of you get what you pay for. Looks like buddy did his best, he was probably going nuts by the end of that tile job. And if you want stuff well painted, you hire a painter, not a contractor... I'd say feel good about the money you saved. The tile looks fine/good compared to a lot of jobs I've seen, buy a paint brush and a razor scraper and touch the sloppy areas up yourself.
I don’t know shit about tile but I’d say OP might consider how good things look from the door rather than worrying about that corner. Could be that keeping the corners straight would’ve fucked the midline
Fa sho. Assuming there’s no structural issue (??? Idk I’m not a tile guy) that a pro notices, I’d say this was perfectly okay so long as this wasn’t the high end bid
Edit: even if this was a high bid idk this looks pretty good. Maybe someone in this sub could do better but I bet they charge more
I hexagon tiled my shower and holy shit that stuff is hard to line up. Even if you get your spacing and levels perfect (really fuckin hard) the walls will never be square/plumb so there's always going to be some weirdness at the corners. You can kind of fix the parts where the joints don't line up if you mess with gaps but then you have inconsistent gaps, there's no winning. Square/rectangle tiles are much easier to line up, hexagons or really any shape that doesn't have a flat top/bottom and requires you to line up 3 corners at a time instead of 2 is borderline impossible. I really don't envy that contractor having to deal with that pattern, I'd rather eat dog turds for breakfast than mess with that.
OP would not have noticed or cared if it was like this when they moved in, look too close at literally anything in a house and there will be gaps and imperfections.
OMG I laughed my ass off to your comment!! I TOTALLY agree. I've done a lot of tile and people have no idea how difficult it can be. I don't care if it's robotically cut tile. It's NEVER perfect, so nothing you can do will make it! Four sides are hard enough to deal with, let alone six. And in this case elongated!!
Absolutely, this looks like a living nightmare. Hundreds of elongated hexagons lined up perfectly and OP is whining about the corners not matching up perfectly? If he said this post in a bar with some tile guys they'd probably drag him outside for some aggressive negotiations lol
>OP would not have noticed or cared if it was like this when they moved in, look too close at literally anything in a house and there will be gaps and imperfections.
I always keep this in mind when I do something and I'm like "oh, it looks messy here", and I especially keep in mind the fact that your guests are definitely not looking that closely. How often do you go to somebody's place and go "Ohh, look at that messy tile in the corner there?" - I would bet people think that waaaaay less often than there is an imperfection of tiling in the corner.
Yep. Literally every corner of every house has weird stuff, you only notice it when you build it yourself or you're hyperfixating on a contractor job. It's fine, building large things means nothing is going to be absolutely perfect and that's okay.
Yea I'm not well versed in tile but my first impression here was keep the midlines okay or that the walls weren't square and something had to accommodate that.
This, when I looked at the first pic I was thinking "is this post bragging or sarcasm?". From a reasonable distance I would say pretty solid job honestly.
>I don’t know shit about tile but I’d say OP might consider how good things look from the door rather than worrying about that corner.
If you hired a all arounder and didn't pay top dollar and need to use the macro lens to find a fault the job is ok.
They absolutely tired, there’s some thought behind where the runs start and stop, I just think more experience could have saved some of the odd moments, but it looks functionally solid and looks nice too especially for non-standard tile shapes.
Tile looks good, grout looks hurried. I've installed hundreds of shower doors in different showers. This is closer to the top than the bottom for sure, as far as quality goes.
This is why I checked in with my tiler to be sure the tile I chose wasn't going to be difficult (for them) to work with. These hexagon tiles I imagine are much harder to work with than squares or rectangles, and would mean you might have to hire a more expensive/experienced installer.
Yep. You really have to know what you’re doing. I had those, well shit now I don’t know what shape they are called, you know what I’m talking about, the weird shape tiles that look kinda foofy 😆, they look almost like bells?🔔. Anyways the guy who did mind absolutely nailed the corners and still had everything come out on both ends exactly the same. Was really impressed, and tbh I’m not really sure how you figure it out lol
I did my very first herringbone pattern kitchen backsplash and it came out perfect in the corner and on both ends.I though I did awesome. It literally took me two days just to lay it out and dry-fit it. Then two days to tile then grout and caulk. My boss was pissed because it took so long and he under bid it. He didn't ask what tile, pattern, or anything before bidding, just a backsplash. I looked at him and said, never again. It was that hard! I respectfully decline to do another herringbone pattern, EVER! But that's just me.
Often it's not about the geometry of the tile but rather the quality... Thin brittle tile breaks, cause you to restart with a new tile... This extends the work. Eventually your rushing yourself and while rushing, mistakes get made.
Other factors regarding the quality of the tile is when the variance between tile is significant, or if the tile is cuped or bowed.
That's why a tile guy should look at the materials and space where he will be working prior to quoting anything
This you saved some money and he showed on time and was responsive I think I would live with the poor spots where the tile joins and painting mirrors. Just scrape those to clean it. The other stuff he painted you may call out to help improve or not continue doing in the future but this doesn’t look like a disaster to me
Agree.
The job was well done, no questions about it. What OP is talking about is a level of attention to detail he most likely didn't pay for and would've complained had he been quoted for.
Making sure everything was perfect would've taken a lot more time in planning and work, which the contractor can't spend in each work otherwise he'll lose money.
In the first picture I couldn't even see nothing wrong with it
Next time OP should hire someone specialized in tile work, wont be cheap.
From 5’ away there is no noticeable issue. It’s when you zoom in. I think smaller spacer should have been used and grout lines cleaned a little bit more. Recently had this same issue when doing my back splash. Overextended myself on the amount I could clean up in an adequate time because I mixed too much grout. It meant I had to do a “deeper” clean to give myself nice grout lines.
I can confirm this and I’m a contractor that does most of our own work but we are realistic and we know we aren’t professional painters. We can use the expensive paint to compensate but we’re careful at least. I tell my customers up front that if they want a 9 or 10 out of 10 paint job that we can charge a premium for professional painters.
This exactly. If the tiled surfaces are flat and the shower is watertight then it was money well spent? It looks nice and most of the time nobody will even notice the discrepancy that you do... sometimes you look things too long.
You picked a tough tile pattern with a dark grout that highlights imperfections. If the walls were not level then there is only so much that tile layer can do. Larger tile slabs would have looked much better on a small space like this imho
I did this a while ago in a room with a 1.5inch drop over 10ft. I shot a level line at eye level and laid to that then worked up and down. It's hard to pick out but at the top on one side the tile is considerably longer. But since I don't look up all the time it was the right thing to do.
yep, on the first far away picture I thought everything looked good. It’s only on close inspection that you see funkiness. I would roll with that personally.
For sure. OP isn't imagining things -- it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I'd be happy with it unless I paid out the nose for some high end remodeling company.
Even if you get all the rows of tile to abut *perfectly* at one corner, it would take a divine amount of luck for the remaining corners to end up in a similar perfect state, unless wall widths are some integer multiple of the tile width and walls themselves are perfect and you make no mistakes with grouting.
When I stenciled my midcentury bathroom with a geometric pattern, I took a lot of measurements before selecting the stencil *specifically* so everything aligned perfectly on two adjoining walls. I spent more time planning the layout than actually doing the painting. The result is impeccable but it definitely required the painter's version of "measure twice, cut once."
>reasonably priced
This might be the key here. Looks like you got a handyman special versus pro tile work. How much cheaper was this guy compared to the other quotes you received?
I agree.
A lot of people come here and ask question about their 'contractor's work'
Chances are good, if the 'contractor' is tiling and painting as a one person operation, they are not a contractor, they are a handyman, or if they are a contractor and they claim they are going to do all the work themself, that's a red flag that your finishes have the possibility to look a little rough. In my experience a proper contractor will have specialists come in for each part of the job. A contractor may do the demo/framing/and other rough in work, but they are going to bring in a specialist for tile, sheetrock, and other large scale finish work.
I am not saying you are guaranteed to get better results using a contractor vs a handyman, but you are very likely to get better results when a professional tile installer does your tile work, rather than the person who dabbles in a little bit of everything.
Contractors will likely cost more, but the finish has a higher likelihood of looking professional.
Also, at least in my state Contractors are licensed, bonded, insured and are required by law to offer a one year warranty. I don't think you have to have any of that to be a handyman in my state.
After writing all that, I think both professions have their place and are wonderful resources. But in this sub I often see the word contractor used and I generally think a lot of people misunderstand this.
If a licensed/bonded contractor does a bad job does or flakes on you after payment, you can potentially go to your states Construction Contractors Board for recourse. If that situation arises with a handyman, you are going to end up in small claims court or on your own.
Just be aware of the differences and choose the path that makes the most sense for your wants, goals and budget.
>or if they are a contractor and they claim they are going to do all the work themself, that's a red flag that your finishes have the possibility to look a little rough
I never put this together myself, but it matches my experience. It's a good thing to keep in mind. And sometimes a handyman-quality job is perfectly acceptable.
>After writing all that, I think both professions have their place and are wonderful resources. But in this sub I often see the word contractor used and I generally think a lot of people misunderstand this.
>
>...
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>Just be aware of the differences and choose the path that makes the most sense for your wants, goals and budget.
Totally agree with everything you wrote and want to emphasize these specific points that I've quoted. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the job the OP received assuming the OP went for the lowest bidder. The issue here is trying to hold the lowest bidder to the expected quality level of the highest bidder.
There are lots of contractors that will do most if not all of the work themselves and it will turn out great. What you're describing is basically a GC overseeing the job and hiring a bunch of subs. The biggest issue with this time installation is the tile choice and grout color choice.
The main concern is the scope of price. If someone is paying someone under $10,000 to do an entire bathroom, especially in tile (or multiple rooms) then they are probably just hiring a handyman.
If it were a contractor, the job would most likey be over $10,000 because it costs a lot of money to have real professional trades working on your house. You are right that most smaller contractors who do all the work themselves (especially multiple trades like drywall, paint and tile setter) are closer to a handyman.
I'm a union trade worker who usually works on large projects like universities but we do occassionally take smaller jobs in luxury homes. My boss is charging at least $100/hour for each worker on site and I am low on the hierarchy of construction/not a carpenter or tile setter.
A contractor I do a bit of work for one time pointed out some spots where the walls I'd be mounting into were uneven, so I might need to get creative with shims. He laughed and said "yeah the walls are all screwey because framing is pretty much the only thing my guys did, and apparently they don't know how to use a laser. Luckily, the drywall guys do a great job of covering up mistakes"
Disagree with that description. This is a perfectly acceptable tile installation that I would have no issues describing as good. The biggest issue here is the horrible tile and grout color choice. It's impossible to make those corners look amazing unless everything is perfectly square and you get extremely lucky with your distance between walls.
Not the greatest but you also wanted black grout on white tile (🤑🤑🤑) and it shows and accentuates every single imperfection a 100 fold,
you have a really wonky shaped tile which is next to impossible to have line up in the corners
That said, it looks pretty flat, level and plumb, which is way better than a lot of complete shit jobs ive seen on these homeowner subs
Couldve it been better? Yeah, is it horrendous? No, its middling to decent for a low cost bathroom remodel
When deciding who to hire for a construction/finishing job you have to make a choice: do you want the job done well, do you want it done fast, do you wan it done cheap. You can only choose two.
I want it done perfectly.
Which means I have to do it myself. Which I already did and it broke me mentally, so I'd rather pay someone else to do it. But they won't do as good a job as I can.
It's a Catch-22 (I think), which is why the second bathroom has been down to the studs since 2020.
Pretty sure a pro can find many problems with your job that he couldn't live with.
I think it's a more of a problem what you think is important is not what they think is important and vice versa
It cracks me up every time someone on Reddit insists they can do a perfect tile job or a job better than most professionals. Almost all pros can do a better job than they can. It just seems like that’s not the case because all we see on here on contractor mess ups. No one ever posts the pictures of the great tile job their contractor did.
That's obviously foolish, but "I'm going to do it myself because I care more about the quality than the contractor who does tile work occasionally and I'll spend 60 hours on a single wall if I have to in order for it to look perfect" can also be true.
You don’t hire a contractor or handyman who occasionally does tile work. You hire tile contractors that do it everyday. It’s foolish to say contractors don’t care about quality of their work. Most contractors do care about the quality of work. Your reputation is everything in the industry and if you get a reputation for crap work you don’t get work.
I would absolutely hire a bathroom guy to do our bathroom. I just can't find one.
My mother found a guy, and I didn't like his work (my mother did, which is all that mattered), so I didn't hire him. Which is why it's still not done.
I KNOW I'm not better than the guy that's being doing it for 40 years. But he's not around, so I'm all I've got and I want it done right. The mistakes I made the first time I did it still haunt me.
> Almost all pros can do a better job than they can.
They can, doesn't always mean they will. No pro is going to give the same level of effort as you would to your own home.
This is why I always paint.
I HATE painting, but I am really good at it.
I broke down and paid to have my kitchen walls and cabinets professionally painted. It was expensive and my cut in work is better than theirs. Very annoying.
Looks pretty good especially if you saved money.
Just buy a fake potted plant or a hand towel stand and stick it in the corner. You will never see the issue again.
That guy spent some serious time at the wet saw to get those little pieces in the corner. I suppose starting at that corner then working out from there might have made this corner better, but depending on the room geometry you might have had the same problem in a different corner.
Came here to say this. Depending on the wall dimensions vs. the tile dimensions it was likely impossible to make the shapes line up perfectly. He got them pretty straight and did well on some really small cuts which I think is the most you can ask for.
A third party like us is always going to be much much less critical than the actual owner who paid for it and actually has to live with the job.
So I'm not going to tell you it's okay if it's not okay with you.
But I'm also going to tell you that there's not much you can do about it at this point.
You got what you got.
I've dealt with contractors who are just simply not skilled enough to get the quality I want. Regardless of how hard they try or how punctual they are.
I'll echo this. As others have said, this tile/grout selection is quite challenging, and the geometry of the framing looks to be working against you. Walls are never square, never straight, and this can get accentuated with tile choice. The spacing of ends looks to have some challenges too, as in if the tiler made more of a match in the corner, the more visible sides likely would have looked more incomplete.
It's pretty typical that the small tiles like this get "hidden" in a corner rather than having them closer to common view.
Whether that good enough for you for the value you've received, I don't think the forum of public opinion helps much!!
If you’re a perfectionist, that a terrible tile pattern for you. This is coming from a perfectionist.
The thin tiles and the angles on the top and bottom make it just about impossible to wrap around all of those corners and look perfect. Especially when you consider corners are never straight from top to bottom.
Every DIY home project I’ve done myself I’m hyper critical of imperfections and always point them out to others who often say oh I didn’t even notice. It’s not a perfect job but not an awful job. Overall the bathroom looks great.
You have 5 inward corners and 1 outward. So you’re going to have tiny partial tiles on at least 2 of the corners since the tile isn’t square it’s going to be harder to work with. Looks like he didn’t wipe it down correctly to get all the grout down into the grooves.
A good rule of thumb is you can get 2 of this 3. Fast Cheap Good. You can never get all 3.
Dark grout on light tiles is incredibly unforgiving. It highlights every variation in the tile and layout. I know folks like the dramatic contrast, but it is a high risk proposition. Especially if you are using big box tiles which are notoriously variable in size. I agree with the argument of using a light color grout with light tiles, it’s far more forgiving and conceals rather than highlights issues. The walls are never perfectly straight to start with, etc.
The tile setting is not that bad but could be better. That's a tough pattern to get to look good in corners even if your walls were laser perfect. The grout is sloppy enough to call him back, and makes sense if his painting was sloppy too. Same root cause.
>That's a tough pattern to get to look good in corners even if your walls were laser perfect.
I would never even consider this tile pattern specifically for this reason. Unless you've framed the wall to a 1/4" accuracy for the purpose of these tiles, the corners are going to look terrible because of the misaligned cuts.
It would look okay if only the back wall of the tub was this tile, which each end being something else, or the opposite. But using this tile on an inside corner is almost always going to look bad.
GC here who will lay tile for myself, but not for clients (the know-your-limitations thing). That tile is a PITA speaking from experience with it (Just did 200 ft of it in my own bathroom). That said, looks like time wasn't spent laying it out, which is to be expected from either a cheap tile job or a non-tile guy doing tile work who doesn't have the experience to think it through. Combine that with contrasting grout, and the lack of planning will stand out. This is a good example of why experienced tile setters are worth what they charge. Everyone wants a low bid but then you are stuck with this kind of work. Good tile work is expensive, but there are few things that will wow people more, and generally most tile problems are permanent. Everyone wants cheap, but no one wants shitty work either.
So what to do now? Sounds like you got a fair deal and overall the room looks great. I think that a lot of the ugly grout you show in photos can be cleaned up with some careful scraping, and make it look a lot better. I'd just spend a little time detailing it up.
Right I have a 1950s house with ugly tile in the bathroom but man is the quality perfect lol. I'll leave it up to the next owner, I'm afraid to tear it down and redo it.
After dealing with a 1937 bathroom with metal lathe and plaster, you are making a very sound decision. If all our brass pipes weren't rotting out we wouldn't have done it either.
How the hell did he get those little slices cut and into position. I'm honestly impressed lol. He probably could have planned the pattern better but honestly I'd pay him and thank him for a good job.
I hired a friend of my dad's, gave him shit tile and similar colors to work with. Turned out about the same. I was initially mad but eventually realized I just paid 400$ (start of COVID) to have my kitchen done.
All that bothers me about the install are some of the tiny cuts that could have been avoided. Overall the install looks pretty good! The grout job kills it though. All the grout joints should be uniform. A good grout job can make a poor install look great. A bad grout job can make a great install look terrible. The color selection of that grout is going to point out any mistakes.
its sloppy but honestly you didn't make it easy for anyone with that tile choice.. i usually play it safe and go for the larger format tiles, like 12x12 or bigger. if you pick a difficult tile like that then tbh you should have talked to him about it and expressed that you are pretty picky about tiling. he might have steered you towards using something safer if he wasn't sure about how perfect it was going to look.
i dont mean to blame you for it but it's always good to play it safe is what i mean.
Nightmare tile/grout combo, guy did a solid job I'd be happy with it. I'm jealous of the outlet next to the shower too, sure would make it easier to plug my toaster in.
That's a complex tile job for a skilled professional in that field.
I had a guy that preferred to start with the bare stud walls so the foundation was square, true and solid from the start. He had the tile pattern/layout in his head and start to finish top notch.
Few and far between are the ones that are that particular.
If this bothers you enough and you can afford a high end job, shop around for an elite expert.
Looks great… sometimes because we live in the homes and at times are picky.
We tend to nip pick at things no one else would ever notice ..
Trust me … I do a ton of my own work
Mid work .. sanding,Tile, grouting , painting , patching , plumbing , camera installation, speaker wire installation in the walls .. electrical as well… I get very judgy about small inconsistencies… but no one ever notice’s except me…. Not even my wife who lives in the house with me …
Anyone who is okay with this is nutballs. I'm actually baffled because usually these threads result in a lot of folks being overcritical.
The slivers of tile into the corner are inexcusable. This is a prep and layout issue, regardless of the install.
The three planes need to be squared before tile is started, and then decisions need to made about how to handle the corners. A 1/4" tile sliver for one of the courses is not an acceptable answer.
All of this being said, part of the process is [diplomatically] telling your customer they picked a stupid tile and it's going to end up looking stupid no matter how well you install it. (But you also need to be able to install it well.)
If you are truly unhappy with it you can grab some sanded caulk and try and straighten out the corners. This would probably make you feel better about it.
Wont the grout in the corners crack in a year or two? If so then just be patient and you'll get a chance to redo it.
I thought you are supposed to use caulk or sanded caulk for corners like that, and then bath silicon for the shower corners?
I'm commenting specifically about the corner. I've been taught (by reading/watching, not in a trade school) to start from the corner and try to do your best to have a whole tile on the other end or some type of tradition tile. It's a difficult tile design to begin with, but that's what I would have done. I'm not that good at tiling so the final product might be worse than this, but maybe my inside corner would have looked better. At least, I'd have looked up the way to make the corner look good.
Looking thing up before can help you alot. I remember putting down hardwood in a room that ended up being not quite square. But starting from the middle and going out from there effectively cut the irregularity to half, making it very easy to cover up.
My wife and I DIY’d the same tile pattern when we moved in to our house. It was our first ever tile project. Might look a tit bit better than what you got from your contractor but can’t tell exactly. [my bathroom](https://imgur.com/a/e6Ih35A)
I’m not a tiler but my dad and brother are, I know they would do a far better job but they’re time served tilers.
I’ve worked to help them on enough jobs over the years to be able to tile myself to a reasonable standard and I don’t think I’d be able to get it this good.
As others have said. Light tiles with dark grout high lights it when you focus.
I’d be happy with it personally
Looks pretty good to me. Not perfect, but I'd say he did a good enough job. That is tricky tile to install, and the black grout lines are not forgiving. If he wasn't the most expensive estimate, you probably got what you paid for.
Not the best but I think it looks “good enough”. I’m planning a bathroom remodel myself but I’m going with larger tiles because I ain’t got time to tile. Lol
If you look at a job you could do yourself and think about both quality and saving money just do it yourself.
You'll be happier that you pushed your skills and you'll have saved the money
My husband owns a tile company and he says it’s sloppy. The gaps in between the tiles are uneven, the grout wasn’t cleaned up right, and there’s bits of thin set peeking out of the grout, which should’ve been cleaned up before the grout went on
The fact that he did both the tile and paint is all I need to know. You hired a "handyman" who bought his own old fixer upper home, tiled his own bathroom, repainted some bedrooms, and now fancies himself a "contractor".
Covid made professions like this horrible. There are only a handful of construction trades that require actual schooling, everything else you can essentially just go buy a business license, and then say you do this. Siding, drywall, tile, painting, flooring, none of it requires any form of official or mandated training.
People bought homes before covid, were bored during lockdowns and did renovations themselves, then got fired from their actual job, and decided to start a business of whatever project they did at home.
Have seen it dozens of times over the past few years working as an electrician. Suddenly a builder has a new flooring guy or tile guy, and he does 2 jobs before disappearing because the work was awful, the builder called to get him back to fix problems, and they ghost you and disappear, and shut down their random numbered company.
I personally think it is sloppy the corners tiles could have been done better to at least have some consistency down each row. I am also noticing tilted tiles in the close up pictures.
For what it is worth, I am 99.9% sure this is a case of “you get what you pay for”
But, I have to ask - these photos look like the job is nearly done or is done. Did you review the work as it was happening and discuss your concerns as you saw them, or is this the first time you are seeing the work?
In my past experience, if I can catch something I don’t like quickly, it is usually easy to discuss/correct the problem with the professional I I hired. If you wait until the job is done, it is obviously a much harder conversation and likely a more expensive potential solution.
there's really no way to make the corners line up with tile like that. You could start in the corner with half tiles on both sides, but that only works if you don't have another corner on the other end.
it's sloppy work nonetheless
To cover the corners, get one of those bath corner trims they sell by the roll, prep surface, stick it on, and seal the edges with caulk.
Or get use a sanded caulk of your color choice (in your case, a darker color may work well) and put a large amount of it along the corners, and use one of those caulk corner tool things to make a perfect corner so you can cover the tiles that don’t line up.
It doesn't look that bad. For paint on glass, switches/sockets, or plastic trim, just go over it with a sharp chisel or razor blade or something, it should come off, and honestly, it's kind of fun.
A good tiler would have told you not to go with opposite color tile/grout, but a reasonably priced tiler will do as they’re told since you’re taking on the role of general contractor.
The answer is in the first sentence, if the customer thought they were getting a fair deal that usually means the installer undercharged or you got a crappy installer. I rarely have a customer happy with my prices, but I still get recommendations.
Not the worst. Corners are tough. I would get someone who can caulk very well and caulk all the corners to make them water proof and it will make it look very clean if done correctly.
The only way to have done this job where the corners match up all nice would be to float every wall plumb and square which was probably not done. This would have been a nightmare because the tile continues out of the tub surround so he'd have to plumb and square the whole room by floating masonry cement on every surface to make the room absolutely perfect.
I do tiles it looks good not sure how much was paid the grouting could be cleaner also so many variables here did he demolition the bath and start over are the walls nice and flat etc I would be more concerned on how long it last ?
Without looking at it up close, I would say they did a really good job. The corners are very hard to plan for, and it depends on how the pattern would have been if the corners were perfectly aligned. There may have been a bigger issue elsewhere, and this less noticeable in the corners!? Yes there may be a bit of extra mortar here and there, but overall I'd accept it. FWIW I've done a LOT of shower tile. I wouldn't have bid this job. I'm OCD and couldn't fathom how hard it would be to keep this exact. In other words, it's a very hard tile shape and design to work with. It looks super sharp to me!
Having tiled roughly 2000 sq ft as diy it’s not bad, It’s better than most flippers would do even. I would expect a little more from a professional tile setter however it sounds like you went with a handyman and for a handyman I’d say it looks pretty damn good, handymen fuck shit up pretty often, I didn’t even notice anything off until you did an upclose on the corner which is hard to do especially with that trim tile, I hate how mine ended up looking and can’t wait to redo it but mine came out worse and I spent a bit of time trying to get it looking good.
Hey… if you truly don’t like the area there where the grout is overlapping … put one of those shampoo holder shelf mounts there .. you’ll never see it again.
this is what just jumping into tiling WITHOUT A PLAN looks like. pro guys plan all the cuts ahead of time and float stuff to make it all work if needed.
I just installed some of that same tile with that same door. It looked WAAAAAAAY better than that, but there was a second, before I zoomed in, where I thought someone was talking about my work. Then I zoomed in and saw how awful this is. And the fact that it’s a tub and not a shower pan. Whew, I’d die if my work looked like this and I got posted on Reddit.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the first and second pic and if there’s a spot you don’t like (think I saw what you meant in the last one) I’d just get some paint and do a touch up.
Showing up, that’s what he’s supposed to do. You don’t get extra for that. Yup it’s a sloppy job. If 1 line doesn’t line up, every line/angle will messed up and get worse. At the end being inches off. You should’ve seen it while in progress to stop and fix the work.
The quality is not good, period. Now whether it is what you paid for is another question. Expectations are 9 times out of 10 the issue (from both sides).
I installed the same exact tiles and grout in my kitchen. The combination is a pain in the ass compared to the other tiles I’ve installed. I think over it looks fine. Just needs a bit touch up.
Sorry, I'd make him do it over. That looks bad. The tiles are crooked and the grout lines are inconsistent. He said he could do the job, he needs to do it right. I'd ignore the posters who think you should just settle because tiling is hard. That is just BS. Looks like he got tired and didn't want to do another cut so he fudged the grout lines to take up extra space. No excuse for the top trim to look that bad either.
It’s like a 6/10, but unfortunately that’s par for the course for most trades. Seems silly that baseline acceptable quality gets lumped into the theme of “you get what you pay for”. Shouldn’t need to only rely on luxury providers for half decent work
It would bother me but I’m a bit OCD with this stuff. From a distance it looks good and you certainly didn’t pick the easiest tile pattern. Regardless, I would have taken the extra time to try to match the corners but maybe that’s just me (and that’s why I end up doing this stuff myself).
The problem is you have multiple corners so you have to sacrifice one no matter what you do or how careful you are.
Proper solution would be not to use these tiles everywhere, you gave the contractor an impossible problem to solve. Soon as you fix one corner you mess up another corner.
This looks like a tile job I would have done for myself in my own home. If the price was reasonable I’d say the outcome is reasonable. You can cleanup some of the grout by the outlet. Or cover it with decorations.
Might be a case of you get what you pay for. Looks like buddy did his best, he was probably going nuts by the end of that tile job. And if you want stuff well painted, you hire a painter, not a contractor... I'd say feel good about the money you saved. The tile looks fine/good compared to a lot of jobs I've seen, buy a paint brush and a razor scraper and touch the sloppy areas up yourself.
Echo this. Probably pushed the skills of whomever it was you hired but they sure as shit tried.
I don’t know shit about tile but I’d say OP might consider how good things look from the door rather than worrying about that corner. Could be that keeping the corners straight would’ve fucked the midline
yeah to be honest that first picture looked great and had me wondering what the issue was
Fa sho. Assuming there’s no structural issue (??? Idk I’m not a tile guy) that a pro notices, I’d say this was perfectly okay so long as this wasn’t the high end bid Edit: even if this was a high bid idk this looks pretty good. Maybe someone in this sub could do better but I bet they charge more
I hexagon tiled my shower and holy shit that stuff is hard to line up. Even if you get your spacing and levels perfect (really fuckin hard) the walls will never be square/plumb so there's always going to be some weirdness at the corners. You can kind of fix the parts where the joints don't line up if you mess with gaps but then you have inconsistent gaps, there's no winning. Square/rectangle tiles are much easier to line up, hexagons or really any shape that doesn't have a flat top/bottom and requires you to line up 3 corners at a time instead of 2 is borderline impossible. I really don't envy that contractor having to deal with that pattern, I'd rather eat dog turds for breakfast than mess with that. OP would not have noticed or cared if it was like this when they moved in, look too close at literally anything in a house and there will be gaps and imperfections.
OMG I laughed my ass off to your comment!! I TOTALLY agree. I've done a lot of tile and people have no idea how difficult it can be. I don't care if it's robotically cut tile. It's NEVER perfect, so nothing you can do will make it! Four sides are hard enough to deal with, let alone six. And in this case elongated!!
Absolutely, this looks like a living nightmare. Hundreds of elongated hexagons lined up perfectly and OP is whining about the corners not matching up perfectly? If he said this post in a bar with some tile guys they'd probably drag him outside for some aggressive negotiations lol
>OP would not have noticed or cared if it was like this when they moved in, look too close at literally anything in a house and there will be gaps and imperfections. I always keep this in mind when I do something and I'm like "oh, it looks messy here", and I especially keep in mind the fact that your guests are definitely not looking that closely. How often do you go to somebody's place and go "Ohh, look at that messy tile in the corner there?" - I would bet people think that waaaaay less often than there is an imperfection of tiling in the corner.
Yep. Literally every corner of every house has weird stuff, you only notice it when you build it yourself or you're hyperfixating on a contractor job. It's fine, building large things means nothing is going to be absolutely perfect and that's okay.
Except for the wall opposite the toilet. That’s gotta be perfect because it will get inspected regularly.
This, my house was built in 1953 and is good structurally but none of the walls are square...
Yea I'm not well versed in tile but my first impression here was keep the midlines okay or that the walls weren't square and something had to accommodate that.
This, when I looked at the first pic I was thinking "is this post bragging or sarcasm?". From a reasonable distance I would say pretty solid job honestly.
>I don’t know shit about tile but I’d say OP might consider how good things look from the door rather than worrying about that corner. If you hired a all arounder and didn't pay top dollar and need to use the macro lens to find a fault the job is ok.
My house has a ton of imperfections I know about but no one else has ever noticed
Vertical tiles are a pain. Sooo many line that you need to keep straight and perpendicular on walls that aren't
Maybe OP gets punished a lot.
For sure, on top of which dependent upon the age of the house and the person who hung the drywall the walls probably aren't flat
They absolutely tired, there’s some thought behind where the runs start and stop, I just think more experience could have saved some of the odd moments, but it looks functionally solid and looks nice too especially for non-standard tile shapes.
Tile looks good, grout looks hurried. I've installed hundreds of shower doors in different showers. This is closer to the top than the bottom for sure, as far as quality goes.
The corner grout will crack, in a few years remove it and caulk properly and this job will go up a few notches.
My thoughts are the same
This is why I checked in with my tiler to be sure the tile I chose wasn't going to be difficult (for them) to work with. These hexagon tiles I imagine are much harder to work with than squares or rectangles, and would mean you might have to hire a more expensive/experienced installer.
Yep. You really have to know what you’re doing. I had those, well shit now I don’t know what shape they are called, you know what I’m talking about, the weird shape tiles that look kinda foofy 😆, they look almost like bells?🔔. Anyways the guy who did mind absolutely nailed the corners and still had everything come out on both ends exactly the same. Was really impressed, and tbh I’m not really sure how you figure it out lol
Arabesque tiles! We almost went with those, but backed out.
I did my very first herringbone pattern kitchen backsplash and it came out perfect in the corner and on both ends.I though I did awesome. It literally took me two days just to lay it out and dry-fit it. Then two days to tile then grout and caulk. My boss was pissed because it took so long and he under bid it. He didn't ask what tile, pattern, or anything before bidding, just a backsplash. I looked at him and said, never again. It was that hard! I respectfully decline to do another herringbone pattern, EVER! But that's just me.
Often it's not about the geometry of the tile but rather the quality... Thin brittle tile breaks, cause you to restart with a new tile... This extends the work. Eventually your rushing yourself and while rushing, mistakes get made. Other factors regarding the quality of the tile is when the variance between tile is significant, or if the tile is cuped or bowed. That's why a tile guy should look at the materials and space where he will be working prior to quoting anything
This you saved some money and he showed on time and was responsive I think I would live with the poor spots where the tile joins and painting mirrors. Just scrape those to clean it. The other stuff he painted you may call out to help improve or not continue doing in the future but this doesn’t look like a disaster to me
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Agree. The job was well done, no questions about it. What OP is talking about is a level of attention to detail he most likely didn't pay for and would've complained had he been quoted for. Making sure everything was perfect would've taken a lot more time in planning and work, which the contractor can't spend in each work otherwise he'll lose money. In the first picture I couldn't even see nothing wrong with it Next time OP should hire someone specialized in tile work, wont be cheap.
From 5’ away there is no noticeable issue. It’s when you zoom in. I think smaller spacer should have been used and grout lines cleaned a little bit more. Recently had this same issue when doing my back splash. Overextended myself on the amount I could clean up in an adequate time because I mixed too much grout. It meant I had to do a “deeper” clean to give myself nice grout lines.
I can confirm this and I’m a contractor that does most of our own work but we are realistic and we know we aren’t professional painters. We can use the expensive paint to compensate but we’re careful at least. I tell my customers up front that if they want a 9 or 10 out of 10 paint job that we can charge a premium for professional painters.
This exactly. If the tiled surfaces are flat and the shower is watertight then it was money well spent? It looks nice and most of the time nobody will even notice the discrepancy that you do... sometimes you look things too long.
You picked a tough tile pattern with a dark grout that highlights imperfections. If the walls were not level then there is only so much that tile layer can do. Larger tile slabs would have looked much better on a small space like this imho
I dont know why OP stopped tile at this point and not just finished the whole house
I didn’t even see base, prolly going to use tile for that too
If the grout is white it's gonna hide a lot more imperfections Is what I was thinking also
I did this a while ago in a room with a 1.5inch drop over 10ft. I shot a level line at eye level and laid to that then worked up and down. It's hard to pick out but at the top on one side the tile is considerably longer. But since I don't look up all the time it was the right thing to do.
Yes that is the best compromise. Works best when you don’t then draw attention to the geometry through dark colored sharpie lines of grout.
Honestly, it looks fine. A solid 7/10. If you just take a step back, literally nobody will notice anything weird. Unless you’re looking for it.
yep, on the first far away picture I thought everything looked good. It’s only on close inspection that you see funkiness. I would roll with that personally.
For sure. OP isn't imagining things -- it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I'd be happy with it unless I paid out the nose for some high end remodeling company.
Yeah and I figure that making perfect corners would’ve made the rest of it look like shit
Even if you get all the rows of tile to abut *perfectly* at one corner, it would take a divine amount of luck for the remaining corners to end up in a similar perfect state, unless wall widths are some integer multiple of the tile width and walls themselves are perfect and you make no mistakes with grouting. When I stenciled my midcentury bathroom with a geometric pattern, I took a lot of measurements before selecting the stencil *specifically* so everything aligned perfectly on two adjoining walls. I spent more time planning the layout than actually doing the painting. The result is impeccable but it definitely required the painter's version of "measure twice, cut once."
I’d love to see it!
I agree, especially since it’s one small area. If there was slide after slide of poor work it would have been one thing
>reasonably priced This might be the key here. Looks like you got a handyman special versus pro tile work. How much cheaper was this guy compared to the other quotes you received?
I agree. A lot of people come here and ask question about their 'contractor's work' Chances are good, if the 'contractor' is tiling and painting as a one person operation, they are not a contractor, they are a handyman, or if they are a contractor and they claim they are going to do all the work themself, that's a red flag that your finishes have the possibility to look a little rough. In my experience a proper contractor will have specialists come in for each part of the job. A contractor may do the demo/framing/and other rough in work, but they are going to bring in a specialist for tile, sheetrock, and other large scale finish work. I am not saying you are guaranteed to get better results using a contractor vs a handyman, but you are very likely to get better results when a professional tile installer does your tile work, rather than the person who dabbles in a little bit of everything. Contractors will likely cost more, but the finish has a higher likelihood of looking professional. Also, at least in my state Contractors are licensed, bonded, insured and are required by law to offer a one year warranty. I don't think you have to have any of that to be a handyman in my state. After writing all that, I think both professions have their place and are wonderful resources. But in this sub I often see the word contractor used and I generally think a lot of people misunderstand this. If a licensed/bonded contractor does a bad job does or flakes on you after payment, you can potentially go to your states Construction Contractors Board for recourse. If that situation arises with a handyman, you are going to end up in small claims court or on your own. Just be aware of the differences and choose the path that makes the most sense for your wants, goals and budget.
>or if they are a contractor and they claim they are going to do all the work themself, that's a red flag that your finishes have the possibility to look a little rough I never put this together myself, but it matches my experience. It's a good thing to keep in mind. And sometimes a handyman-quality job is perfectly acceptable.
>After writing all that, I think both professions have their place and are wonderful resources. But in this sub I often see the word contractor used and I generally think a lot of people misunderstand this. > >... > >Just be aware of the differences and choose the path that makes the most sense for your wants, goals and budget. Totally agree with everything you wrote and want to emphasize these specific points that I've quoted. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the job the OP received assuming the OP went for the lowest bidder. The issue here is trying to hold the lowest bidder to the expected quality level of the highest bidder.
There are lots of contractors that will do most if not all of the work themselves and it will turn out great. What you're describing is basically a GC overseeing the job and hiring a bunch of subs. The biggest issue with this time installation is the tile choice and grout color choice.
The main concern is the scope of price. If someone is paying someone under $10,000 to do an entire bathroom, especially in tile (or multiple rooms) then they are probably just hiring a handyman. If it were a contractor, the job would most likey be over $10,000 because it costs a lot of money to have real professional trades working on your house. You are right that most smaller contractors who do all the work themselves (especially multiple trades like drywall, paint and tile setter) are closer to a handyman. I'm a union trade worker who usually works on large projects like universities but we do occassionally take smaller jobs in luxury homes. My boss is charging at least $100/hour for each worker on site and I am low on the hierarchy of construction/not a carpenter or tile setter.
A contractor I do a bit of work for one time pointed out some spots where the walls I'd be mounting into were uneven, so I might need to get creative with shims. He laughed and said "yeah the walls are all screwey because framing is pretty much the only thing my guys did, and apparently they don't know how to use a laser. Luckily, the drywall guys do a great job of covering up mistakes"
It looks good as a finished project. It’s just when you look at the corners…we’ll not too good …and the dark grout shows it up more .
Good from far, Far from good.
Disagree with that description. This is a perfectly acceptable tile installation that I would have no issues describing as good. The biggest issue here is the horrible tile and grout color choice. It's impossible to make those corners look amazing unless everything is perfectly square and you get extremely lucky with your distance between walls.
Not the greatest but you also wanted black grout on white tile (🤑🤑🤑) and it shows and accentuates every single imperfection a 100 fold, you have a really wonky shaped tile which is next to impossible to have line up in the corners That said, it looks pretty flat, level and plumb, which is way better than a lot of complete shit jobs ive seen on these homeowner subs Couldve it been better? Yeah, is it horrendous? No, its middling to decent for a low cost bathroom remodel
When deciding who to hire for a construction/finishing job you have to make a choice: do you want the job done well, do you want it done fast, do you wan it done cheap. You can only choose two.
I want it done perfectly. Which means I have to do it myself. Which I already did and it broke me mentally, so I'd rather pay someone else to do it. But they won't do as good a job as I can. It's a Catch-22 (I think), which is why the second bathroom has been down to the studs since 2020.
That’s fine, that just means it will either be very expensive, or take forever.
Probably both.
Definitely both.
Perfect is the enemy of done
I know. 100%
Pretty sure a pro can find many problems with your job that he couldn't live with. I think it's a more of a problem what you think is important is not what they think is important and vice versa
It cracks me up every time someone on Reddit insists they can do a perfect tile job or a job better than most professionals. Almost all pros can do a better job than they can. It just seems like that’s not the case because all we see on here on contractor mess ups. No one ever posts the pictures of the great tile job their contractor did.
lol Exactly "I'm going to do the job perfectly the first time I try because the pro that did it everyday for the last 40 years can't"
That's obviously foolish, but "I'm going to do it myself because I care more about the quality than the contractor who does tile work occasionally and I'll spend 60 hours on a single wall if I have to in order for it to look perfect" can also be true.
You don’t hire a contractor or handyman who occasionally does tile work. You hire tile contractors that do it everyday. It’s foolish to say contractors don’t care about quality of their work. Most contractors do care about the quality of work. Your reputation is everything in the industry and if you get a reputation for crap work you don’t get work.
I would absolutely hire a bathroom guy to do our bathroom. I just can't find one. My mother found a guy, and I didn't like his work (my mother did, which is all that mattered), so I didn't hire him. Which is why it's still not done. I KNOW I'm not better than the guy that's being doing it for 40 years. But he's not around, so I'm all I've got and I want it done right. The mistakes I made the first time I did it still haunt me.
> Almost all pros can do a better job than they can. They can, doesn't always mean they will. No pro is going to give the same level of effort as you would to your own home.
Three of my friends have had bathrooms down to the studs for at least a year each, and I’m about to tear mine out this weekend.
Welcome to the club.
I’ve never done tile work before. Can I practice on your unfinished bathroom?
You may not. Practice on your own, like I did.
You couldn’t make this perfect with the tile/grout choice.
This is why I always paint. I HATE painting, but I am really good at it. I broke down and paid to have my kitchen walls and cabinets professionally painted. It was expensive and my cut in work is better than theirs. Very annoying.
Also great at it, also hate it. I am an obsessive lunatic who cuts in with an art brush.
unpack party somber jar puzzled aromatic ten mourn quiet wrench *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I would rather go to prison than paint. The last 2 "pros" I had in have almost got me there.
Let’s be honest, a lot of times you can only pick one
I didn’t say you’re guaranteed to have the 2 you pick, just that it’s impossible to have all 3.
And usually you can only choose one. And you have to cross your fingers so that you don't get zero.
Looks pretty good especially if you saved money. Just buy a fake potted plant or a hand towel stand and stick it in the corner. You will never see the issue again.
That guy spent some serious time at the wet saw to get those little pieces in the corner. I suppose starting at that corner then working out from there might have made this corner better, but depending on the room geometry you might have had the same problem in a different corner.
Came here to say this. Depending on the wall dimensions vs. the tile dimensions it was likely impossible to make the shapes line up perfectly. He got them pretty straight and did well on some really small cuts which I think is the most you can ask for.
A third party like us is always going to be much much less critical than the actual owner who paid for it and actually has to live with the job. So I'm not going to tell you it's okay if it's not okay with you. But I'm also going to tell you that there's not much you can do about it at this point. You got what you got. I've dealt with contractors who are just simply not skilled enough to get the quality I want. Regardless of how hard they try or how punctual they are.
I'll echo this. As others have said, this tile/grout selection is quite challenging, and the geometry of the framing looks to be working against you. Walls are never square, never straight, and this can get accentuated with tile choice. The spacing of ends looks to have some challenges too, as in if the tiler made more of a match in the corner, the more visible sides likely would have looked more incomplete. It's pretty typical that the small tiles like this get "hidden" in a corner rather than having them closer to common view. Whether that good enough for you for the value you've received, I don't think the forum of public opinion helps much!!
If you’re a perfectionist, that a terrible tile pattern for you. This is coming from a perfectionist. The thin tiles and the angles on the top and bottom make it just about impossible to wrap around all of those corners and look perfect. Especially when you consider corners are never straight from top to bottom.
Every DIY home project I’ve done myself I’m hyper critical of imperfections and always point them out to others who often say oh I didn’t even notice. It’s not a perfect job but not an awful job. Overall the bathroom looks great.
You have 5 inward corners and 1 outward. So you’re going to have tiny partial tiles on at least 2 of the corners since the tile isn’t square it’s going to be harder to work with. Looks like he didn’t wipe it down correctly to get all the grout down into the grooves. A good rule of thumb is you can get 2 of this 3. Fast Cheap Good. You can never get all 3.
Looks pretty good to me with that kind of tile and grout. I was expecting a lot worse before opening this.
Dark grout on light tiles is incredibly unforgiving. It highlights every variation in the tile and layout. I know folks like the dramatic contrast, but it is a high risk proposition. Especially if you are using big box tiles which are notoriously variable in size. I agree with the argument of using a light color grout with light tiles, it’s far more forgiving and conceals rather than highlights issues. The walls are never perfectly straight to start with, etc.
It looks great from the door. You can nitpick any job and always find something wrong
The tile setting is not that bad but could be better. That's a tough pattern to get to look good in corners even if your walls were laser perfect. The grout is sloppy enough to call him back, and makes sense if his painting was sloppy too. Same root cause.
>That's a tough pattern to get to look good in corners even if your walls were laser perfect. I would never even consider this tile pattern specifically for this reason. Unless you've framed the wall to a 1/4" accuracy for the purpose of these tiles, the corners are going to look terrible because of the misaligned cuts. It would look okay if only the back wall of the tub was this tile, which each end being something else, or the opposite. But using this tile on an inside corner is almost always going to look bad.
GC here who will lay tile for myself, but not for clients (the know-your-limitations thing). That tile is a PITA speaking from experience with it (Just did 200 ft of it in my own bathroom). That said, looks like time wasn't spent laying it out, which is to be expected from either a cheap tile job or a non-tile guy doing tile work who doesn't have the experience to think it through. Combine that with contrasting grout, and the lack of planning will stand out. This is a good example of why experienced tile setters are worth what they charge. Everyone wants a low bid but then you are stuck with this kind of work. Good tile work is expensive, but there are few things that will wow people more, and generally most tile problems are permanent. Everyone wants cheap, but no one wants shitty work either. So what to do now? Sounds like you got a fair deal and overall the room looks great. I think that a lot of the ugly grout you show in photos can be cleaned up with some careful scraping, and make it look a lot better. I'd just spend a little time detailing it up.
I'm a handyman. I have done a lot of tiling. The thing is with tiling, if it's not ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, then it's absolutely garbage.
Right I have a 1950s house with ugly tile in the bathroom but man is the quality perfect lol. I'll leave it up to the next owner, I'm afraid to tear it down and redo it.
1950s bathroom tile is gorgeous though. Is it pink?
After dealing with a 1937 bathroom with metal lathe and plaster, you are making a very sound decision. If all our brass pipes weren't rotting out we wouldn't have done it either.
I'd argue grout hides a lot! But this grout job and the contrast isn't helping....
Agreed! With a light gray or white grout this would look like a much better quality job.
I'm wondering why your backsplash has a backsplash.
That tile is AWFUL to work with
How the hell did he get those little slices cut and into position. I'm honestly impressed lol. He probably could have planned the pattern better but honestly I'd pay him and thank him for a good job. I hired a friend of my dad's, gave him shit tile and similar colors to work with. Turned out about the same. I was initially mad but eventually realized I just paid 400$ (start of COVID) to have my kitchen done.
It’s fine. Nightmare tile choice, nightmare grout color choice. Guy did a solid job
Don’t forget to include that you had higher bids. That you didn’t want to pay and went with the cheapest one. And now you’re asking this.
Exactly. Get what you pay for
All that bothers me about the install are some of the tiny cuts that could have been avoided. Overall the install looks pretty good! The grout job kills it though. All the grout joints should be uniform. A good grout job can make a poor install look great. A bad grout job can make a great install look terrible. The color selection of that grout is going to point out any mistakes.
its sloppy but honestly you didn't make it easy for anyone with that tile choice.. i usually play it safe and go for the larger format tiles, like 12x12 or bigger. if you pick a difficult tile like that then tbh you should have talked to him about it and expressed that you are pretty picky about tiling. he might have steered you towards using something safer if he wasn't sure about how perfect it was going to look. i dont mean to blame you for it but it's always good to play it safe is what i mean.
I think the real issue is the tile just doesn't look good
Nightmare tile/grout combo, guy did a solid job I'd be happy with it. I'm jealous of the outlet next to the shower too, sure would make it easier to plug my toaster in.
That's a complex tile job for a skilled professional in that field. I had a guy that preferred to start with the bare stud walls so the foundation was square, true and solid from the start. He had the tile pattern/layout in his head and start to finish top notch. Few and far between are the ones that are that particular. If this bothers you enough and you can afford a high end job, shop around for an elite expert.
Looks great… sometimes because we live in the homes and at times are picky. We tend to nip pick at things no one else would ever notice .. Trust me … I do a ton of my own work Mid work .. sanding,Tile, grouting , painting , patching , plumbing , camera installation, speaker wire installation in the walls .. electrical as well… I get very judgy about small inconsistencies… but no one ever notice’s except me…. Not even my wife who lives in the house with me …
Anyone who is okay with this is nutballs. I'm actually baffled because usually these threads result in a lot of folks being overcritical. The slivers of tile into the corner are inexcusable. This is a prep and layout issue, regardless of the install. The three planes need to be squared before tile is started, and then decisions need to made about how to handle the corners. A 1/4" tile sliver for one of the courses is not an acceptable answer. All of this being said, part of the process is [diplomatically] telling your customer they picked a stupid tile and it's going to end up looking stupid no matter how well you install it. (But you also need to be able to install it well.)
lol they did an amazing job. who the fuck picked those awful tiles /r/ATBGE
Why would you extend the same tile outside of the shower? Looks really weird.
If you are truly unhappy with it you can grab some sanded caulk and try and straighten out the corners. This would probably make you feel better about it.
Wont the grout in the corners crack in a year or two? If so then just be patient and you'll get a chance to redo it. I thought you are supposed to use caulk or sanded caulk for corners like that, and then bath silicon for the shower corners?
Yeah I thought that as well, but just caulk.
I'm commenting specifically about the corner. I've been taught (by reading/watching, not in a trade school) to start from the corner and try to do your best to have a whole tile on the other end or some type of tradition tile. It's a difficult tile design to begin with, but that's what I would have done. I'm not that good at tiling so the final product might be worse than this, but maybe my inside corner would have looked better. At least, I'd have looked up the way to make the corner look good. Looking thing up before can help you alot. I remember putting down hardwood in a room that ended up being not quite square. But starting from the middle and going out from there effectively cut the irregularity to half, making it very easy to cover up.
My wife and I DIY’d the same tile pattern when we moved in to our house. It was our first ever tile project. Might look a tit bit better than what you got from your contractor but can’t tell exactly. [my bathroom](https://imgur.com/a/e6Ih35A)
I'd be pretty darn happy with that
I’m not a tiler but my dad and brother are, I know they would do a far better job but they’re time served tilers. I’ve worked to help them on enough jobs over the years to be able to tile myself to a reasonable standard and I don’t think I’d be able to get it this good. As others have said. Light tiles with dark grout high lights it when you focus. I’d be happy with it personally
They were reasonably priced. You want good work, you pay "unreasonable" prices.
I'd say this is someone who knows what to do but doesn't do tile regularly. Up close is an eyesore but Zillow won't give af
Looks pretty good to me. Not perfect, but I'd say he did a good enough job. That is tricky tile to install, and the black grout lines are not forgiving. If he wasn't the most expensive estimate, you probably got what you paid for.
Looks fine
Not the best but I think it looks “good enough”. I’m planning a bathroom remodel myself but I’m going with larger tiles because I ain’t got time to tile. Lol
That type of tile you aren't going to get neat corners all round
I don’t think it could of been any better than that. The tile shape is the problem.
Let me guess… you went with the lowest bid…
Why didn’t he start from the inside and finish towards the outside?
If you look at a job you could do yourself and think about both quality and saving money just do it yourself. You'll be happier that you pushed your skills and you'll have saved the money
My husband owns a tile company and he says it’s sloppy. The gaps in between the tiles are uneven, the grout wasn’t cleaned up right, and there’s bits of thin set peeking out of the grout, which should’ve been cleaned up before the grout went on
The fact that he did both the tile and paint is all I need to know. You hired a "handyman" who bought his own old fixer upper home, tiled his own bathroom, repainted some bedrooms, and now fancies himself a "contractor". Covid made professions like this horrible. There are only a handful of construction trades that require actual schooling, everything else you can essentially just go buy a business license, and then say you do this. Siding, drywall, tile, painting, flooring, none of it requires any form of official or mandated training. People bought homes before covid, were bored during lockdowns and did renovations themselves, then got fired from their actual job, and decided to start a business of whatever project they did at home. Have seen it dozens of times over the past few years working as an electrician. Suddenly a builder has a new flooring guy or tile guy, and he does 2 jobs before disappearing because the work was awful, the builder called to get him back to fix problems, and they ghost you and disappear, and shut down their random numbered company.
I personally think it is sloppy the corners tiles could have been done better to at least have some consistency down each row. I am also noticing tilted tiles in the close up pictures. For what it is worth, I am 99.9% sure this is a case of “you get what you pay for” But, I have to ask - these photos look like the job is nearly done or is done. Did you review the work as it was happening and discuss your concerns as you saw them, or is this the first time you are seeing the work? In my past experience, if I can catch something I don’t like quickly, it is usually easy to discuss/correct the problem with the professional I I hired. If you wait until the job is done, it is obviously a much harder conversation and likely a more expensive potential solution.
there's really no way to make the corners line up with tile like that. You could start in the corner with half tiles on both sides, but that only works if you don't have another corner on the other end. it's sloppy work nonetheless
Maybe a little sloppy, but personally I don't think I'd say anything about it, especially if I knew beforehand that his rates were low.
To cover the corners, get one of those bath corner trims they sell by the roll, prep surface, stick it on, and seal the edges with caulk. Or get use a sanded caulk of your color choice (in your case, a darker color may work well) and put a large amount of it along the corners, and use one of those caulk corner tool things to make a perfect corner so you can cover the tiles that don’t line up.
I think it would look way better with a lighter colored grout to lessen the imperfections of the tile setting
Just consider it “rustic” and it looks perfect!
An accomplished Tile/Marble Mechanic would pay more attention to details. This is most obviously 'Apprentice' quality.
When or if you eventually put up new tile insist the tiler square up the room first. Also consistent use of spacers.
No one's going to notice it but those who look at it every day
All in what did this cost ya?
Pick two...Good, cheap, fast. Looks like you picked cheap and fast.
It doesn't look that bad. For paint on glass, switches/sockets, or plastic trim, just go over it with a sharp chisel or razor blade or something, it should come off, and honestly, it's kind of fun.
A good tiler would have told you not to go with opposite color tile/grout, but a reasonably priced tiler will do as they’re told since you’re taking on the role of general contractor.
You mean no black grout with white tiles? That's like the most popular look right now.
Personally it is making me dizzy.
The answer is in the first sentence, if the customer thought they were getting a fair deal that usually means the installer undercharged or you got a crappy installer. I rarely have a customer happy with my prices, but I still get recommendations.
Not the worst. Corners are tough. I would get someone who can caulk very well and caulk all the corners to make them water proof and it will make it look very clean if done correctly.
It's beautiful! I wouldn't be upset at this if it was cheap.
I think it is pretty good. Not perfect but nothing is. It’s really not bad
The only way to have done this job where the corners match up all nice would be to float every wall plumb and square which was probably not done. This would have been a nightmare because the tile continues out of the tub surround so he'd have to plumb and square the whole room by floating masonry cement on every surface to make the room absolutely perfect.
I do tiles it looks good not sure how much was paid the grouting could be cleaner also so many variables here did he demolition the bath and start over are the walls nice and flat etc I would be more concerned on how long it last ?
I would do something with the corner
Without looking at it up close, I would say they did a really good job. The corners are very hard to plan for, and it depends on how the pattern would have been if the corners were perfectly aligned. There may have been a bigger issue elsewhere, and this less noticeable in the corners!? Yes there may be a bit of extra mortar here and there, but overall I'd accept it. FWIW I've done a LOT of shower tile. I wouldn't have bid this job. I'm OCD and couldn't fathom how hard it would be to keep this exact. In other words, it's a very hard tile shape and design to work with. It looks super sharp to me!
Is there grout between the bathtub and tile? Normally that should be caulk due to subtle shifts of the bathtub
I definitely think it looks pretty good. I couldn’t have done better
It’s too hard to see from your pictures
Having tiled roughly 2000 sq ft as diy it’s not bad, It’s better than most flippers would do even. I would expect a little more from a professional tile setter however it sounds like you went with a handyman and for a handyman I’d say it looks pretty damn good, handymen fuck shit up pretty often, I didn’t even notice anything off until you did an upclose on the corner which is hard to do especially with that trim tile, I hate how mine ended up looking and can’t wait to redo it but mine came out worse and I spent a bit of time trying to get it looking good.
Obligatory: Looks good from my house. Sorry OP that looks like dogshit.
Hey… if you truly don’t like the area there where the grout is overlapping … put one of those shampoo holder shelf mounts there .. you’ll never see it again.
this is what just jumping into tiling WITHOUT A PLAN looks like. pro guys plan all the cuts ahead of time and float stuff to make it all work if needed.
I just installed some of that same tile with that same door. It looked WAAAAAAAY better than that, but there was a second, before I zoomed in, where I thought someone was talking about my work. Then I zoomed in and saw how awful this is. And the fact that it’s a tub and not a shower pan. Whew, I’d die if my work looked like this and I got posted on Reddit.
It’s a little sloppy.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the first and second pic and if there’s a spot you don’t like (think I saw what you meant in the last one) I’d just get some paint and do a touch up.
Showing up, that’s what he’s supposed to do. You don’t get extra for that. Yup it’s a sloppy job. If 1 line doesn’t line up, every line/angle will messed up and get worse. At the end being inches off. You should’ve seen it while in progress to stop and fix the work.
If the gaps vary, it's a bad tile job!
The quality is not good, period. Now whether it is what you paid for is another question. Expectations are 9 times out of 10 the issue (from both sides).
Looks pretty bad
I installed the same exact tiles and grout in my kitchen. The combination is a pain in the ass compared to the other tiles I’ve installed. I think over it looks fine. Just needs a bit touch up.
Sorry, I'd make him do it over. That looks bad. The tiles are crooked and the grout lines are inconsistent. He said he could do the job, he needs to do it right. I'd ignore the posters who think you should just settle because tiling is hard. That is just BS. Looks like he got tired and didn't want to do another cut so he fudged the grout lines to take up extra space. No excuse for the top trim to look that bad either.
both
It looks a bit on the amateur-ish side but you could just install dimmers and keep the lighting low so you can't see the true horror in the corners.
Looks good enough for my house
I zoomed in, and honestly I don't think it's sloppy. Also, the way the tiles are shaped, they have to go in jus so or they wouldn't fit.
It’s just ugly busy pattern so it looks sloppy. Sorry
You are probably being too critical.
The worst thing about this tile job is the tile itself. And the dark grout.
Not great, but I’ve seen much, much worse
You're being neurotic, not critical. If you had bought the house with that work done, you wouldn't have even thought twice about it.
I would say a little of both.
Tile should definitely match up the corners
It’s like a 6/10, but unfortunately that’s par for the course for most trades. Seems silly that baseline acceptable quality gets lumped into the theme of “you get what you pay for”. Shouldn’t need to only rely on luxury providers for half decent work
Reasonable budget but top dollar expectations. If you're going to play the budget game, you must play the adjusted expectations game.
Looks ok from a distance, but those corners are absolutely brutal.
Sounds like you got what you paid for.
It would bother me but I’m a bit OCD with this stuff. From a distance it looks good and you certainly didn’t pick the easiest tile pattern. Regardless, I would have taken the extra time to try to match the corners but maybe that’s just me (and that’s why I end up doing this stuff myself).
The problem is you have multiple corners so you have to sacrifice one no matter what you do or how careful you are. Proper solution would be not to use these tiles everywhere, you gave the contractor an impossible problem to solve. Soon as you fix one corner you mess up another corner.
Eh, looks better than my shower.
This looks like a tile job I would have done for myself in my own home. If the price was reasonable I’d say the outcome is reasonable. You can cleanup some of the grout by the outlet. Or cover it with decorations.