Terrible bathroom remodel help

[Michelle B]

The tile was laid poorly. (By a supposed “contractor”) Can we have the bottom half removed and redone (by someone else) while keeping the top half that doesn’t look bad? Also any ideas on how to deal with gaps from drywall to tile/hardibacker? This guy says he’s going to caulk it and then suggested we use joint compound to fix the walls? I would post this at John Bridge but they never activated my account so I could post...

 

[Paulypfunk]

Although I am not a professional and tile setter I am in a lot of showers as a plumber. Hard to tell exactly what your beef is with the tile work from your photos. You said you don’t like the lower half? Is the tile uneven? Crooked? Was the design not agreed upon before hand? Did you select the materials? Because your expectations weren’t met it doesn’t necessarily mean that the worker is dishonest.
The edge is not great IMO. Usually we want to see an even substrate and have the tile laid overlap onto the green board, then the edge caulked or grouted. Is there a waterproofing barrier underneath the tile? Often what seems like glaring errors disappear after the addition of grout. I suppose you could add a rounded bullnose or pencil tile around the edge to make the transition?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Michelle B]

Thank you for replying. He did red guard behind tile. The beef is the goofy pieces above the niche. The plan was about 3.5 feet of porcelain and then 3 feet of stone to ceiling. He tried to cut corners by not cutting the bottom tiles. (Put 4 feet of porcelain up). Then because that was too high he had to cut the top of the porcelain where it meets the rail. If he had done any layout planning he would have cut the bottom not the top. That would have dropped down the the tiles above the niche so there wouldn’t be 2 oddball mismatched pieces right over the top of the niche. I also had to force him to to use a mortar bed under the tub per the instructions (he wanted to skip that). I’m praying that today the tub spout will make it all the way to the tile (he says he can probably screw it on tight enough to make it reach?) since as of now the top edge of the spout has a gap when I tried to slip it on because the pipe thing is angled down. Overall a frustrating experience. He claims the problem was that there is a flange on it behind the wall?

 

[Paulypfunk]

Sounds like you have a mismatch of expectations.

When working with large tiles there is often a short cut somewhere. Some folk like to put it at the floor or on the ceiling and some like to put it in the center to make a contrasting band of different size to soak up the difference. As I said, I’m a plumber and not a tile setter, so my opinion is worth what you paid for it. Did you work with your contractor to agree on a tile layout before he started? Did you provide elevation and layout drawings? If not you likely share some responsibility. You can’t expect a commissioned craftsperson to eat the cost of a redo because you ‘just don’t like it’. You will have to use your judgement on this because we don’t know all the details of your project.
The tub spout thing doesn’t worry me. That copper can be cut back, or a threaded adapter can be fixed to the end, or you can get a spout that fits over the copper pipe and seals with an O ring. The other end of that copper pipe is screwed into a fixed fitting behind the wall. Usually you can unscrew it and fit in the properly sized nipple pipe to work.

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

Only the 2 sorta oddball tiles over the niche I agree.. everything else looks fine from what I can see. The gaps between the tile and drywall are easily filled with drywall compound caulked and painted. That is normal.

Also agree that the tubspout is no problem. If its threaded then a an adapter gets soldered on to the pipe, or if its slip, it just gets cut to fit. Lots of options in that regard.

 

[Paulypfunk]

Good, fast or cheap. Pick one.

 

[Michelle B]

He wasn’t cheap and he wasn’t quick lol. As Tuttles pointed out it’s the niche pieces that bother me. It was poor planning. We did discuss layout. It was supposed to be about 3.5 feet of porcelain and 3 feet of stone. He tried to do 4 feet of porcelain without consulting me so he could avoid cuts. It was going to look off. Since he had already tiled three feet he had to do the cuts at the top of the porcelain on the 4th row. If he had done them at the bottom like I originally requested the weird pieces over the niche would have been eliminated coincidentally. I do expect when hiring a “pro” they give some thought to this type of stuff before hand. This was my first renovation project and I learned a lot. But really, a professional should have thought out something as basic as this. And to boot he left the walls as is and suggested we use joint compound to fill them in and caulk. He said he was running behind schedule for his next job. Maybe if he had showed up for more than 3-4 hours a day and hadn’t called in 1-2 times per week it wouldn’t have taken him 4 weeks lol). Thank you Tuttles for reassuring that this is ok (the joint compound/caulk). I did pay him and I didn’t ask for a redo. I think I will consult another contractor to see about fixing up the niche pieces. I asked the original guy to at least center the grout joints in the niche area... he declined and said it would “throw off the stagger pattern”. I still think it would have at least looked a little better if centered.