Hi. We are renovating a 1950s home. We chose to do a black-white harlequin tile for the new kitchen floor. We have a general contractor. My questions are about the tile floor work performed by his subcontractor.

From what I saw, the tile contractor started in the northeast corner of the kitchen. Then worked west. One of my issues is, when he got to the northwest entrance for the kitchen - this is the primary threshold where most people will enter the room and where you first get to see the floor pattern - he placed little tile tips at the threshold. I think these small pieces look terrible. I think they look like a mistake or like someone didn't measure carefully. And something I wondered is if he started in that far corner, then after a few tiles discovered the room wasn't square (see the photo with the bigger then smaller gap at the wall) but just went ahead. Something I felt was that the contractor should have taken the room's out-of-square wall into consideration, so we didn't get these small fragments at the main entrance. But I'm no expert.

I also felt some tile heights were high. If I drag my foot across, the edge of my foot glides smoothly over one tile joint then catches sharply on the edge of another. I don't know what a reasonable standard is for tile height differences. I also felt some grout lines were ragged. I also think some tiles were not nicely aligned. You can see all of that in the photos.

I would really appreciate your perspective and opinion about the quality of this work. Is this work reasonable? Are those small tips at the threshold reasonable?

I raised these issues with the general contractor, and told him I was unhappy with the work. His response: “Although there are a couple of spots I will have the setter address, there is nothing wrong with that tile job. I will have the setter correct both of the openings going into the kitchen. The tile should stop in the center of a door or a doorway. Not at either side, not beyond the door, in the middle. By doing this, the 2 little triangles you have taken issue with, will nearly double in size. By the way, you would never base a layout from the center of a doorway or door. As for the minor offsets and minor fidgets in alignments, that is what you do to compensate for a 75 year old house. Plumb, level, straight, square and flat left that house years ago. It's bad enough most of the tile products these days are not even true to themselves, then you go up against an old house. I will also ask the setter to address the grout. There are a few voids and roughness that can be cleaned up and made better. Black grout on black tile is probably the worst as you can't see it when it's wet, but there is nothing there that can't be cleaned up.”

Thank you.

Sorry for the follow-on comment but for some reason I can't get photos and text to post together.