When you’re working with tiles that aren’t all the same size, you have to have much larger grout lines than that to disguise the imperfections. Multiply that by the out of whack old house floor issue.

There’s a big difference in cost and results in a remodel and a restoration type of work. All older houses will be out of whack. Most contractors aren’t paid to rebuild the house. They are paid to do the best that can be done within the constraints of out of level and plumb. The results, and type of work that you expect, should be documented on the front end in your designs. If you want perfection, it must be documented, and be willing to be paid for.

If you paid for the whole bathroom to be reframed, then the results are not what you would expect for that scope. Hold your judgement until a conversation takes place though. There are valid reasons to not be perfect, when you have new and old meeting.

If the difference between perfect and existing is large, that has to have a design to handle that where it meets. You can’t simply make the shower perfect, and then have a tapered 6” mini wall to meet the other bath wall. Not unless you’re OK with drawing attention to the out of plumb rest of the space. You may have to fudge it, and only build out 3”.

Talk to your contractor.

Oh goodness, those tiles are really not even close and the grout looks quite sloppy. I would point out anything you aren’t happy with and ask them to redo. It might not be perfect, but it needs to be better than that.

Sigh....did you SPECIFICALLY contract them (ahem...written in plain language on the paper signed by both parties) to 'fur' out the walls to get them plumb? And square? That is another few days of work + another chunk of change. It can add another few thousand on to a contract?

Do you have "in progress" photos? On Houzz, we make the assumption that, "If the 'pretty' side looks ugly, image what the hidden part looks like." Which means if they messed up the tile then they most likely messed up the water proofing.

As for the curve of the wall...if it started that way and you did NOT pay for the pluming of the walls, then yes...this will happen. The concrete tiles are not a pretty picture. The tile sizes look to be different sizes. To over come such an issue, the PROFESSIONAL TILE SETTER (...not a contractor....but TILE SETTER) will have sorted the tiles in to different sizes. And then would have laid them as per size.

If you provided the cement tiles and did NOT sort them yourself, then there could be a rushed job by a contractor who is NOT a tile setter.

Tell us about your contract, tell us about the work you asked to be done (plumbing?? electrical?? etc???) and how much you paid for your job (and where you live...location dictates local labour rates).

More photos of progression.

Also, have you tried cleaning the grout from these tiles yet? Encaustic tile requires sealing BEFORE grouting and after. Once everything is cleaned up, I recommend covering these floors until construction is complete.

Pattern match can be tricky, especially if the tiles are handmade and imperfect. I often order much more overage than typical with these types of tiles to make sure we have enough good pieces to draw from and to account for needing to match the pattern on all four sides. Are all the patterns mismatched or just these two tiles?

In my experience, any tile installer that I would consider competent shims and plumbs the walls so that these types of problems don’t occur. The tile guy who retiled my master bath a couple of years ago told me he wouldn’t start tiling until he got down to less than 1/32” deviation using a 6’ level.

Questions- if the contractor was paid to strip down to studs and replace... that does not include making the walls correct to put tile on? Making plumb with the replacement isn't a regular part of the process when a room gets stripped to studs?

@ beesneeds...sadly the 'tile install' has NOTHING to do with wall structure. Sigh...I know.

A 'tiling professional' is a specialized subcontractor (and is expensive...which is why MANY general contractors do NOT use them...they loose money because they have to pay TOP DOLLAR for a tile pro...just sayin'). A tile setter (in a high-end company) comes in when the walls have been dealt with. The tile setter will add the water proofing to walls and shower pans, etc. S/he will install the crack prevention membranes like Ditra or Schlutter. They then spread their thin-set and start setting their tile. Before they drop in a single tile they would have done an hour or so of measuring and calculating to ensure the tiles are centred properly and that corners do not have 'slivers' and everything else that goes into making tiles look 'good'.

They will also sort their tiles (again...can be an hour worth of work all total) and work from groups that are in the same size range, etc. All of this 'precision' costs a contractor MONEY.

That means a contractor will often 'cheap out' and use one of their 'guys' (who will rip out walls, pound nails, run to the coffee shop for lunch...etc) to do the tile work.

The General Contractor (who is probably not the tile setter pro) is responsible for the stud work and the cement board and the taping and the mudding of said board. To fur out walls and to make them plumb and square can take a day worth of work...and that can be fiddly. Remember: time is money to these guys. The faster they get the work done, the more money they make. If they have to lose a day and a half (1 day for the walls + 4 hours for a tile setter to do all the sorting and the math) the GC will lose close to $1000. And that is pure profit.

The tile pro comes in and takes over when the walls are up (studs covered) and then does the work required to get tiles to work as a water proof surface.

If the GC is also the 'tiler' (not trained in tile work), you get issues like this. We see this ALL the time.

Well then, learn something new every day. I would have figured if it's a strip down, that would also just automatically building it back up right. I'd be right irritated to work on a brand new wall knowing my tile isn't gonna be right because the wall isn't. But I guess I get it, hours to make it right also means more bucks.

Now I know, and I will keep this in mind if I ever need to have this kind of work done to make sure the reframing/plumb language is there.

Thanks :)

Thank you all for your input. We live in South Florida and our contract is very basic. It basically just spells out materials we need to supply and what the contractor supplies. I never would've expected this type of finish work, nor did my contractor alert me of any potential issues that could arise with the tiling. In regards to the curved wall in the shower- the contractor actually used spacers between the mortar and tile purportedly to ensure the tile was laid straight due to out of plumb walls, (see pic attached which was from the opposite wall which came out ok), yet the one wall came out noticeably curved! The floor tile is actually porcelain with an encaustic design. The subfloor is terrazzo, like many other 1960's homes in the area. There are many areas off with the pattern floor not just the two pics shown. Unfortunately, I do not have many pics of the progression. Needless to say I am not happy with the results so far, but wanted to know if these issues were "typical" for an older home reno. Can I reasonably demand for them to re-do the work?

@SJ McCarthy We paid $12k not including materials for a complete bath remodel in the South Florida area for a tiny 5x8 bathroom. We used a general contractor for the work. They demoed the old bathroom down to the studs, hung new sheetrock, installed new tub, shower, tile, door trim, vanity, toilet, etc. (everything you need in a bathroom). They sold us on their firm by showing us pics of other bathrooms and boasted about their tile work. This is totally not what I was expecting. Unfortunately, they have been paid 90% of their contract based on phased payments as detailed in contract, yet lots still remains to be completed. The toilet, vanity, mirror, door trim, and baseboards have yet to be installed. They also need to paint and repair some damage they made in an adjacent room when they demoed the bathroom. I know they are going to give me a song and dance regarding the flaws with their work and just trying to gather info before my conversation with them. I appreciate your insight:)

Oh...dear. Florida isn't the most expensive place in the world...bit it isn't dirt cheap either. It is middle of the road pricing.

Who PAID for the materials? You did or they did? Was that INCLUDED in the $12K? Or was that extra.

I live in Canada...in the second most expensive city in the WORLD to live (second behind Hong Kong). Canadian Labour costs are high and material prices are high (except for lumber...we have that in spades). The average cost for a 'human being's sweat' (in the building industry) = $50 per HOUR. In 'dirt cheap' states the cost is as low as $25 hour. I'm guessing yours is somewhere in between. The amount of humans working multiples the man hours. If you had 3 guys that works out to be $150 per hour. See where I'm going?

Go ahead and guess how many HOURS your project has cost the General Contractor? With the Canadian prices it works out to be 240 hours of work. If there were three guys working the job for 8 hours each, the 240 hours is worth 2 weeks of work.

It sounds like you had plumbing (in Canada a Red Seal plumber = $180/hour) and electrical (Red Seal Electrician = $180/hour). That means 1 HOUR for each (two hours total) removes 8 MAN HOURS from your budget. That's a full day's worth of work.

BTW: I have NO IDEA what the HE!! IS BEING shimmed there in your pic! That's just weird! It is *possible the tile setter 'floated' the tiles on that wall (floating means using MUD/thinset build up to off-set the wonky wall). Yet the rest of the walls are already set...I'm wondering why the guy would bother when everything else is wonky...unless they switched guys.

You also have wavy white subway tiles (made to look hand made) with very THIN grout lines. That is TOUGH thing to do...and is not recommended. The grout lines should have been much bigger....and straighter...just another thing I spotted.

And yes you have every right to ask for a redo...before they go any further.

The US average cost to renovate a bathroom (down to the studs) is $30K. That average includes the $16K renos to the $120K LUXURY HOME master bath...with 2 of everything.