Our tile/flooring person was pretty unhelpful. He's at a big company that works with builders and GCs, but they've recently begun moving into working with builders on all kinds of options, not just flooring. So I felt that his flooring selections got cleared out to make room for other items (bathroom selections, brick, siding, etc) in the shop.

Meanwhile, a couple of times we went (and we went four or five times), he kept telling me "I can pull everything out again, but you've seen it all!" in quite a rude tone. But in all honesty, he kept showing us the same three or four tile and was uninterested in showing us anything else. I was disappointed and I did tell our builder about it, and he was very surprised to hear it. I was never wowed by anything I found there, but ended up picking something that fit our budget and was relatively innocuous. I decided that I would WOW with other finishes, and just let the floor be the floor. Sad, I know, but our experience with the tile guy was just that bad. Also, he never had pricing on anything, and he had to go into the "back" to look up anything we wanted prices on, which took FOREVER. Our appointments would run 3 hours long and we'd end up without making a decision because we were so frustrated with the process.

On the other hand, we did end up finding a carpet place with sales people we loved, who went out of their way to help us. And in fact, not once did we make an appointment, we just dropped in because they were nearby. BUT, they are a retail shop and open to all walk-ins. It just so happened there was always one of the two people available to chat or help us when we came in. They even helped pick paint colors, and then showed us the tile we had picked with the OTHER vendor to help us pick grout colors. I think the retail carpet store was hungry and wanted the business. The tile distributor, not so much.

Good luck.

Capegirl, I don't know what your budget is, but I put a tile in my master bath called "Statuary Matte" that looks like white marble. It was $2.59/sq foot. It is a 12x24 tile. It's shown here on the shower walls, but I used it on the floor also.

Hope this helps! Good luck with it!

Buckhead - that is a beautiful "real marble looking" tile. Do you know the brand?

We are also using a "marble" tile for our upstairs jack and jill bath. American Olean Coliseum collection and it is pretty budget friendly if I recall. Our bathroom is not done yet but this is the GW thread where I found it, complete with pictures of a beautiful bath done in it.

Capegirl,

I ran into the same problem with the local tile shops, as far as disclosing pricing during selection. I found it totally annoying and bizarre. They would show me all kinds of samples and ask me to select without knowing any of the pricings -- which is a total waste of time if you are selecting things way over budget unbeknownst to you. When I balked and said I needed to know the pricing in order to select the tile, they told me that is how it is done -- and after I had selected everything they would work up a final quote. I ended up buying all of my tile online for that reason. That is something you can consider, but it carries it's own risks / drawbacks.

C.

Capegirl, I'm sorry you're having such a rough time with tile. I also haven't been impressed with our tile experience. We've ended up finding stuff we like, but we went over budget (because the vendor wasn't very upfront with pricing) and it has taken for-freaking-ever to choose stuff. And now, 3 weeks before our move-in date, we've found out that our master bath flooring is backordered until the end of August!

Hiring a decorator may be the right choice for you, but I'd also ask your GC about other options, such as a different vendor, online shops, etc. In hindsight, I wish we would've pushed back more when we weren't happy with the experience.

Thank you all so much for your support. I am feeling better just reading that this seems to be semi-standard. Seems almost like a scam...you find what you want and they hook you and then you have to swallow the price? She has been very forthcoming with granite pricing. I am meeting with her today, and after a very long talk last night with DH, I am going to explain my frustration and see where it goes. I will keep you all posted. I would like to see if she has any porcelain tile that looks like marble...that is amazing!
I know it has been said a million times, but I would be in bad shape without this forum...thanks again!

Downsy, I got it at Floor and Decor here in Atlanta. It's not on their web site, though. I'll see if I can find a box and get the manufacturer for you. It's a porcelain tile.

Thanks buckhead - I'm in the Chattanooga area. I plan on making a trip to Dalton soon. I'd love to look at the porcelain tiles that look like marble. I never realized they looked so close to the real thing.

The women at our tile shop spent quite a bit of time with us, but we kind of already knew what we wanted. and she showed us samples. she was really helpful with choosing grout colors. Getting pricing info was extremely frustrating. The company supplying the tile was also installing and they refused to break down the price between tile and labor.

We used the American Oleans Catarina white in 2 of our baths.

If you love marble another option is to do white subway in your shower and do a window detail with a pretty marble in a herringbone patern. Get the most bang for you buck. The American Oleans catarina in the brown is also very pretty. We did that in the guest bath.

Ugh!!! Tile was a hot mess for us, as well! I was so frustrated at the tile showroom our builder uses. I found a smaller place and took my ID with me, I was NOT going to deal with that alone. The first place made me feel like an idiot. I made sure our builder knew...hopefully they won't continue using them. They were very cagey about the prices...super annoying. I only had 4 baths and a laundry, so I guess I was just a little peon.

Funny... we have the same exact experience with the tile person our GC sent us to. They would not tell me the price of anything we were looking at and said that the way to do it is to tell them what we want and then they will look up the price. It was extremely frustrating. I ended up going to home depot and lowes (and also looked a little online) and finding tile that I liked. I took some pics and emailed them to my GC who asked the tile guy to find something similar. They eventually found good tile at competitive prices but the process was very frustrating.

I had a similar issue with our light fixtures and I ended up having my GC order everything from lightingdirect.com.

Note.. I am not in anyway related or employed by lightingdirect but they really saved me a lot of $ over some of the local lighting shops.

Just goes to show that the way business used to be done with local suppliers having all of the control and keeping prices hidden, etc. will not be the way of the future with the extremly competitive forces from online dealers.

yeah, I don't have a GC, I acted as my own, but I found working with tile shops very frustrating. they were very secretive on pricing and everything was very pricey, what they quoted me.

I ended up getting all my bathroom tile at HD and Lowes. mainly lowes, and a few special order home depot tiles. Lowes has some nice stuff, and if you are creative, you can put together some really nice looking bathrooms.

for the kitchen, I found a better, more upfront tile shop and bought something nice at $5 a sqft, whcih was more expensive than the other tile, but far cheaper than what other tile shops wanted, and it was for a nice high quality 20x20.

Our ordeal was the same, but think it's because of the way the Builder's are doing their projects. We only came out with our sanity here (as we too are price shoppers) because we had a great showroom rep, kinda knew what we wanted in advance, had already had a horrendous experience with Vendor #1, decided quickly with Vendor #2, and they moved rather quickly - and we did all this WAY WAY in advance of needing the tile.

Where we lived before, we were just about to build before having Job Drama & moving up here. We met with a builder there. He gave us a choice - do the project one of two ways:
- Pay him a flat fee, then put what we want into the house at cost;
- Do this insane dance that everyone is doing now - shop without knowing prices, everyone spending 3x more time than necessary, just so everyone can make 5-10%.

All this seems like a fantastic waste of time to me. We were JOYOUS to pay him the flat fee - make your profit -yes! Just don't waste my time..... then we moved.

We were unable to do this with the builder up here, BUT while they've been building onsie-twosie, this is their first "group" of homes. Out of fear not making their desired profit, they chose the "secret pricing game" plan, causing delay, makeing everyone totally insane, spinning wheels, sowing confusion, ripping stuff out & re-doing, and end up making WAY LESS per house than if they'd done HALF the flat-fee to begin with! My guess is they are all half insane by now (I know we are), and don't know why, LOL. Soon as we close, I will make a few suggestions, don't worry.......

BTW, the marble shower looks awesome!!

We waited too late to decide about just a few things and the Master Bath was one--the Kitchen/Bath designer wanted something (8 years ago--who can remember at my age) that was too expensive. What we landed with is boring and will have to be changed if we move. TAKE YOUR TIME!! and it will turn out great!

The tile shop that our builder uses was very helpful (local Dal Tile). Of course, we had an appointment, so we had the representative's full attention. She knew what tile was within the builder's allowance and provided several samples for us to choose from. She was very knowledgeable on prices and when we asked about other tile that we saw that caught our eye, she was able to let us know what the price difference was.

Hi,

Choices, Choices and if you delay, you hold up the GC and it costs more for the house. Yeah we found ourselves shopping every day and weekend.

Marble is real nice though expensive. However it can be expensive and can chip and stain if you are not careful. Not to mention the cost of laying it. Note tile is less expensive to install typically than marble because of the adhesives and cutting involved. Ask your GC.

In the end we went to a porcelain tile from Home Dept Expo (sadly the Expos no longer exist). I would go to a tile shop and look around. Bathroom fixtures I would go to a professional bath place like Best Plumbing if you are in Westchester, New York State, or where ever your pro place is. They typically has lots of catalogs to give you ideas.

Other ideas include slate, and Tavertine. Note that with this is it VERY important to (a) get a sample and (b) in your contract to have the right to REJECT the delivered batch. The issue is that the sample and what you end up with can be wildly different. The "it is a natural material" is true, but you can get some real junk. Going with tile is much more controlled. What you choose is what you get because it is manufatured.

Not sure what you like but you can end up with slate and tavertine like this. Some disclosure here. The hotel is my brother's. Tavertine is cheap in Italy as is labour. The hotel has been in Vogue USA. My brother used alot of Tavertine on the terraces and bathrooms. Slate in the kitchens and also bathrooms. I think the black stone in the fountains is some sort of granite.

Anyway look on the bright side of things. You are at the bathroom stage. That is more than 50% of the way there!!!

Keep smileing and all the best. Mike.

Here is a link that might be useful: Movarola Hotel

CapeGirl--Same experience here with the tile--no one really wants to help, no one really wants to give you a price & when you actually find something that trips your trigger it's $$$$$. Frustrating!!!! I finally got lucky with the Florida Tile Rep in our area. I told him what I wanted and the budget & he gave me 3 options for the floor & 5 for the walls. Decisions were finally made in 1 afternoon--and on budget!!!

Anyway, as far as a marble look, Florida Tile has 2 series that come to mind--Renaissance (4 colors) & Pristique (2 colors). Both were on special for $2 per sq. ft. There's another tile manufacturer called Venis that made a marble looking tile that we used in our last house that was absolutely beautiful. I think they were in the $3-6 per sq. ft. range.

Hope this helps! Good luck to you & hope to see your pics soon!!!

Here's a marble tile @ $3sq ft on eBay for you, CapeGirl...

Here is a link that might be useful: Marble Tile eBay Auction

After going through an extremely, frustrating build with GC awhile back, we realized that we didn't HAVE to use his contact, as a matter of fact we received better service and a better price from another flooring store in town.
When we initially told our GC that his contact had a very limited choice, and was unhelpful, he became brusque with us and told us if we didn't like him "go find someone else". I don't think he thought that's what we would do!

'Captive customers' is not what we are just because he and GC have an arrangement!

OK, I think I have the answer on why we can't get any prices from these guys. We finalized everything on the tile today and our tile guy made an interesting comment about how he had verified with our builder that there was no upcharge on the tile and that his price was our price & any discounts he received were passed onto us. So basically, many builders do not pass on any discounts/special promotions to the customer and may even tack on an extra percentage to boot! They not only make money off the build (their overall percentage) but they're jacking up the prices on the materials too!! The subs are too scared to tell us a price because it all varies builder to builder.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but it seems like the cost to build is the cost to build. If the project comes in under the estimate because the owner was able to come in under budget on their allowances (perhaps due promotional pricing), a credit should be given. If the project comes in over the estimate due to the owner blowing the allowances, the owner should pay the difference. All discounts should pass to the owner. The way it's being run now with all this secrecy, skimming off the top, upcharging, etc, makes it very frustrating, makes you not trust your builder & it sounds like a scam to me...

It IS frustrating! Drove me nuts till I fired my builder and took over building myself.

When you have a cost-plus contract, it seems to me to be totally contrary to the contract for the builder to tack ANY additional amount on to the price his subs charge him. Your agreement was to pay his costs PLUS a percentage of that amount to him as profit. You did not agree to pay his costs plus some undetermined amount that HE tacks on (a hidden profit) PLUS a percentage of both those amounts as his profit.

And, if you have a fixed price contract with allowances for certain items, you should be able to spend up to that amount where ever you want to purchase the items covered by the allowance. If you go over you pay the extra. If you come in under the allowance amount, you should at least be able to apply the extra to some other allowance item.

The only possible case where I think materials subs might have a reason not to provide you with the cost of the items you're interested in is if your contract is a fixed fee without allowances and your builder has told you "go in an choose from among the options that I have pre-approved." In that case, you don't really have much selection but the builder needs to make sure that there is SOMETHING available that will meet the requirements of the contract. (i.e., at least ONE kitchen faucet is available - whether you like it or not is beside the point.)

What I found is that, once I was GC-ing my own build, I didn't have any problems getting prices. And nobody asked me to prove that I was the GC. Until I was ready to buy, they didn't even require me to have a "business account."

So, next time, try going in and tell the subs you are GC-ing a home for yourself and you want to price options. Do not mention your builder's name. Tell them that for estimation purposes, a "straight" price without any "builder-promo" deal is fine because you're not going to be ready to build for another couple of months so that will give you a cushion in case prices go up in the meantime.

Lay you odds that you'll get the info you want. That will at least give you some idea of which choices are the more expensive ones and which ones are likely to be within your budget. You can stop wasting your time looking at anything that is more than 20% or more above your budget. Then, once you've picked out things you like, you can ask if they give builders a promo-deal and what you would need to do to qualify. Once you have that info, you'll have a pretty good idea of what the cost to your builder is.

Walk away with all the info you need on what you want and give that to your builder to order from.

And, for allowance items, YOU SHOULD RECEIVE A COPY OF THE INVOICE for the items purchased. Ask the builder to have the supplier send a copy directly to you. He may balk but point out to him that there is no other way you can know how much over or under the allowance you went and that, as a businessman, he should understand that you have to have documentation for your expenses just as he does.

Nicely said, Bevangel. I will tack on one thing--when you get a copy of the invoice, you need to get a copy of the one the builder got from the supplier which shows his actual charges. (We're getting copies from both the builder and the supplier to try to cover our rears on this.) I remember reading on the window forum (I think) where the supplier gave the customer 2 copies by mistake: One was the builders' invoice and the other was the fudged "customer copy invoice" with inflated numbers.