Tile Reviews

My brother Dmitri and I own this company together. He sets tile, I do the tear outs and the estimating, and we have divided the arguing up the same way for eleven years. Here is the truth under our whole business: we tear out other men's showers for a living. Beautiful tile, expensive tile, and behind it black rot, because somebody skipped the waterproofing or poked holes in the pan and called it done. The homeowner always says the same thing standing in the demo dust: it looked perfect. Of course it looked perfect. Tile is a liar that keeps a straight face for about three years. Dmitri flood tests every pan he builds and photographs it, which our crew used to tease him about, called it his modeling career. Then the review asks started sending when we finish, and clients began writing about the test. One woman wrote that she chose us after reading a review where the man explained he filled the shower floor with water and left it overnight before any tile went down. Her remodeler now sends Dmitri his showers, all of them, and told me it is because his customers arrive already knowing what is under the tile. Our youngest setter flood tests now when Dmitri is not even on the job. The pan either holds or we do, one of the two.

I priced a patterned shower in March for a couple in the next town over, left my numbers, and then did what I always did, which is nothing, because calling people back about a bid feels like begging to me. My father set tile for thirty years on referrals and he raised me thinking if the work is good the phone rings. The phone does not ring like that anymore, Papi, I am sorry. The estimate follow ups went out, with her pattern layout attached, and three weeks later she answered she had been staring at that photo on her fridge and the cheap bid she took had cracked a corner in the bath. She asked if my price was still good. It was. We did the shower in June and she has sent me two cousins since. I am still not going to beg anybody. But the fridge picture can do the asking for me, I have made my peace with that.

I took the front end off my dad two years ago, the calls, the measures, the scheduling. I used to ride along on his Saturday measures for people who had a handyman coming Tuesday and just wanted our number to keep him honest. Saturdays gone. Now the estimate on the site takes their pictures and measurements first, and I can smell a fishing trip before anybody leaves the house. Last Saturday my sister rowed on the river and the whole family went, Dad too, instead of measuring a stranger's shower floor. That has not happened in six years of Saturdays.

Large format tile does not forgive anybody, and I include myself. A client brought me a warped porcelain she had bought on sale, planks bowed like bananas, and when the light came across that floor every bow stood up and introduced itself. She stood over me and said the word lippage like she had learned it that morning, which she had, on the internet. I ate two days fixing what the tile brought with it. Our site now shows our own large format work up close, grout lines and all, and it explains in plain language what a floor can and cannot hide, what standing in a doorway looking down a hallway will show you. A general contractor sent me a client this summer who had already read all of it. She walked her own tile with a straight edge before I set a single piece and sent back two boxes herself. I did not have to be the villain in her kitchen. I will still set almost any tile a person loves. Love is not the problem. The problem was always me explaining physics at the end of a job instead of the beginning, and that part is just done now.

I set tile with my hands in mortar half the day, and a phone ringing on the counter used to mean choosing between wiping everything off or losing the job. The voice Launchbarr put on our phones answers now, asks about the room, the size, whether it is a shower or a floor, and books the measure. A homeowner told me she picked us because whoever answered sounded patient. I was on my knees in her neighbor's bathroom when she called. The patience is not mine. I just get the booked jobs.

My missed calls used to sit there until the grout dried, which is a nice way of saying the job went to somebody else. Now the second a call is missed, a text goes out asking what they need. A man answered at midnight that his shower was leaking into the ceiling below. We were his first call back, because we were never really gone.

Ray and I own this company together, and we split it the way we split everything, loudly at first, then by who is better at it. He is better with a trowel. I am better with people, which is why it burned me that website messages sat unanswered while we were both on jobs. Now the messages get answered as they come in, by the assistant Launchbarr set up. It asks the right things. Is it a shower or a floor. Has the tile been bought. Is there a leak now or is this a remodel. Then it books the measure with the answers attached. A remodeler told me our reply reached his client before his own office did. Ray read the exchange over my shoulder and said, it asks better questions than you do. He is not wrong. He is not allowed to say it at the supply house.

My husband Glenn has set tile for twenty six years and keeps the business in his head, a notebook in the truck, and whatever I remember him saying at supper. Calls came to his phone, texts came to mine, and the website notes went to an email he opens at tax time. Everything lands in one place now, every call, text, and message, visible from the kitchen table. A woman messaged Sunday about a backsplash, and Glenn answered her Monday without knowing she had written, because the conversation was there waiting. Glenn says I have stopped interrogating him at supper. I say the business keeps a notebook of its own.

I am sixty eight years old and I have set tile since grout came in two colors if you were lucky. Asking a customer to say nice things about me in public felt like asking for a compliment at church, and I was raised better. My reviews were a handful of kind people who did it on their own, and the handyman down the road had forty, half of them probably his cousins. The ask goes out on its own now when the last joint is caulked and the floor passes inspection, from Launchbarr, and I do not have to open my mouth. People write about the work the way they talk about it. One man wrote that we flood tested his shower pan and left the water sitting overnight before a single tile went down, and that he slept fine because of it. Another wrote that our grout lines run true enough to set a watch by, which is foolishness, but it is the kind of foolishness that books showers. A builder who sends us his custom work told me he forwards our reviews to homeowners before we ever meet. I have stopped arguing that the work should speak for itself. The work speaks fine. It just needed somebody to ask it a question.

I took the phones and the front end off my dad two years ago, and I dreaded answering reviews. Dad sets beautiful tile and writes like a ransom note. One thank you, typed in all capitals, looked like he was shouting at a woman who had paid us. The replies run on their own now, in plain words, naming the job and the detail the customer mentioned, the heated floor, the pattern, the dog that supervised. A homeowner told me she chose us from reading how we answer people. Dad asked if it could also answer his brother at Sunday dinner. I told him some conversations still belong to management.

I run the office, which used to mean watching calls go to a shop whose listing carried our old number. Our Google profile showed a showroom we closed years ago and listed us under flooring. Launchbarr cleaned it up: right category, real shower photos, every service we actually do. The calls off the map now are people ten minutes away asking about tile, not carpet.

For two years the internet had us at an address we left in 2019, with a phone number that belonged to a pizza place by the end. Customers told me they almost did not call, because a company that cannot keep its address straight does not inspire confidence about waterproofing. Launchbarr matched everything up, the same name, address, and number on every site a homeowner checks before trusting you with a bathroom. Now the calls start with the shower they want, not with questions about whether we are still in business. I tile. I should not have to be a detective about my own listing, and now I am not.

My old website had a smiling couple in a bathroom that does not exist, in a house nobody built, standing on tile nobody set. It came with the site years ago, and redoing it sounded like a winter project I would never start. Homeowners landed on it and went looking for work they could actually see. The site Launchbarr built is our work and only our work. Showers mid build with the waterproofing showing, flood tests standing full, finished floors shot down the hallway so you can judge the lippage yourself. A homeowner told me she had already walked through four of our bathrooms on her phone and picked her pattern from one of them. My setter asked if the site could also carry tile up the stairs. It cannot. But it carries the part of this trade nobody used to see, and that part was always worth paying for.

Luis and I started as two setters tired of fixing other people's showers. The tear outs are his, the selling mine, and for years it meant one page that said we do tile, all tile, call us. A homeowner searching for a custom shower does not call a page that says all tile. There are pages now for the work itself: custom showers, heated floors, large format, backsplashes, each with our photos and how we build them. A woman called about a steam shower because she had read our waterproofing page and had questions ready. Luis said she interviewed us like a building inspector. She signed.

Nora owns this company and sets the best large format in the state, and I say that as the man who carries it in for her. Her weak spot was never tile. It was the calendar, measures promised off the top of her head, double booked Saturdays, me apologizing in driveways. Homeowners book their own measures now on a real calendar, at times that exist. The night before, they get reminded, and Nora gets a day that adds up. A customer told her it felt like dealing with a company three times our size. We are two people and a van. Nora smiled and let him keep the arithmetic.

My no shows were never lazy customers. They took a morning off work for a measure, forgot which morning, and met my knock in a bathrobe, panicking. I would drive home with an empty hour. The reminders go out on their own now, and the on my way text goes when I am actually on my way. People are ready. Dogs are put up. The tile samples they picked are sitting on the counter. Last month I ran eleven measures and every door opened on the first knock. In this trade, an opened door is the whole ballgame.

I used to write estimates on Sunday, days after I stood in the bathroom, and by then the homeowner had a warm number from somebody faster. Now I send it from the truck before I leave the driveway, line by line, prep and waterproofing priced where they can see it. A man signed in his own driveway while I loaded the ladder.

My husband Eddie can lay out a shower beautifully, and he cannot follow up a bid to save his life. He says calling about an estimate feels like begging, and I say starving quietly is not a business plan. The bids sat in a folder. I used to work down that folder on Sunday nights, apologizing for bothering people. The follow ups go out now without begging, spaced messages with the layout drawing attached and the price standing where it stood. In March a couple answered one from January. Their cheap bid had a pan leaking into the kitchen ceiling, and they wrote back from the tear out dust asking if Eddie's number was still good. It was. He redid that shower in May, and she cried at the flood test. Eddie says the folder finally learned manners. I say I got my Sunday nights back.

I am the office, the schedule, and the one who used to dread the tile order call. Custom tile gets ordered on a deposit, and asking for that deposit used to take two calls, a mailed check, and a week of floating while the homeowner decided we were real. The deposit link goes out with the estimate now, and people pay it from their phone the same evening. One woman paid hers from a tile showroom, standing in front of the porcelain she wanted, before she could talk herself into the cheaper box. I order tile on paid deposits only. My dread retired, and the calendar stopped floating.

Bathrooms are where my customers' money runs out in the middle of the sentence. They want the whole room done right, waterproofing, heated floor, the good tile, and then the number lands and you can watch them start cutting the parts they cannot see, which are exactly the parts that flood a house in three years. I lost that argument for a decade. A man can only say the words hidden work so many times before he sounds like he is selling ghosts. Offering the job in pieces they pay as we go changed the math at the kitchen table. Launchbarr set it so the contract, the deposit, and the draws are plain, and a homeowner can spread a real bathroom across the build instead of gutting the scope to fit one check. A couple last fall kept the waterproofing whole, kept the heat, kept the tile they loved, and paid it down stage by stage while I worked ten feet from their kitchen. Their neighbor asked what it cost and the husband said, less than doing it twice, which is the truest sentence ever spoken about tile. I will set a cheap bathroom if a man insists. I would rather never do it again, and now, most months, I do not have to.

A contract is a promise about things nobody will see again once the tile is down, so I want it signed before anybody swings a hammer, not discovered in an argument later. My paperwork crossed kitchen tables like weather, late, damp, or living in a truck console. Now the agreement goes to the customer's phone, scope in words, the waterproofing, the prep, the cure times nobody may rush, and they sign it at their table. A homeowner told me she read ours twice, because it was the first paper written to be understood. We start jobs with the argument already settled, which in this trade is half the craftsmanship.

I am the daughter and the only one who reads instructions. Dad kept every lead in a notebook under the truck seat, and when it got wet we lost a spring. Everything is on one board, every measure, every bid, every start date. I checked it during a flood test this morning, standing in a dry shower. Dad says that is showing off.

Chris sets the tile, I run the estimates and office, and our follow up system was one of us saying, did you call that builder, and the other saying, I thought you did. That builder, meanwhile, gave the showers to somebody else, and we found out at the supply house. The board tells us now who gets called and when, and the reminders land before the forgetting does. A remodeler who sends us work told Chris we are the only subs who call when we say we will. We are not better men than we were. We are reminded men, which in the trades is the more reliable species.

I have never posted a thing in my life and I am not starting at fifty nine, but finished tile photographs itself if somebody remembers, and remembering was the whole problem. Jobs ended, we cleaned up, we drove off, and the prettiest shower I ever set lives only in that homeowner's bathroom and my memory. The photos go out now on their own after a job closes, our showers, our floors, the grout lines running true, posted where the neighbors scroll. A woman two streets from a job we finished in spring booked a measure because she had watched that shower come together post by post, the waterproofing, the flood test, the last caulk line. She told me she felt like she already knew how we work. She did. She had just never had to ask me, which is good, because I would have described it badly and at length.