Some folks in the neighborhood had an early ’70s vintage house with a pretty seriously failing tub surround. The house had been flipped and re-sold sometime around 2005 or so, and the tub surround had been redone in the least expensive way possible: Aesthetics aside, a basic 4×4 white ceramic tile tub surround is fine so long as it’s installed with proper waterproofing. Unfortunately, tile … Continue reading A “Very Brady” Tub Surround Redo
This post describes yet another ‘custom’ tile shower install fail. It was almost one of the most strangely bad shower construction installs I’ve seen. While I’d previously encountered shower installs done with no waterproofing at all and the most bizzare ‘waterproofing’ imaginable, this job was another first. How do you use all the (mostly) right ingredients to construct a shower that is completely wrong? Read … Continue reading Stylish Shower Replacement, part uno!
Tile can be expensive, and finding tile that you like can be hard. There are lots of retail options for buying tile but there are also lots of pros and cons to consider like selection vs markup, easy returns vs online availability, etc. It’s a good idea to know where residential reno tile comes from even if you’re working with a pro designer. Knowledge is power after all, and some tile buying intel can be a powerful cost savings tool. So this post has some tips! Continue reading So, Where to Buy Tile?
Here is a quick explanation for why floor tiles crack, how to match and replace cracked floor tiles, and how to ensure that they won’t just crack again. Why do floor tiles spontaneously crack? The general answer is pretty simple — ceramic, porcelain, and natural stone is very hard but brittle. So, if you drop something hard on a tile floor, you’re probably going to … Continue reading Fixing Cracked Floor Tile
There are a lot of ways that a ceramic tub surround wall tile can get cracked. But, if the crack runs along the entire length of the longest tub surround wall, then there’s only one explanation — whoever installed the original tub surround used concrete backerboard (good) but jammed the backerboard seams so tightly together that they couldn’t expand or contract without cracking the tile … Continue reading Replacing Cracked Wall Tile
