Greater Boston
Every photo below is our own work in a real Boston-area home. Not a mood board, not a render. Each one lists the install days and the detail underneath the tile that decides whether it still looks like this in five years.
Large-format marble-look porcelain on the walls, hexagon mosaic on the floor. Porcelain gets you the veining without marble's sealing schedule or its habit of etching the first time someone spills shampoo.
Underneath: Schluter KERDI waterproofing behind every wall tile, mosaic sheets cut to land a full hex at the drain rather than a row of slivers.
4–6 install days
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A curbless-leaning pan in a bathroom that could not lose any floor height. This is the detail most people are actually pinning when they save a "wet room" photo, and it is the one that lives or dies on the pitch.
Underneath: Pre-pitched pan with a bonded drain, corners banded before a single tile goes on. Pitch is set by the pan, not by piling thinset under tile.
2–4 install days
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12x24 on the walls to keep grout lines down, river rock underfoot for grip, and a bench built into the framing instead of bolted on afterwards.
Underneath: Bench is framed and fully waterproofed before tile — the top pitched to drain toward the floor, which is the step that stops the puddle that eventually finds the framing.
4–6 install days
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High-gloss black subway against flat-front cabinets. Gloss is unforgiving: it shows every wave in the wall behind it, which is why the prep matters more than the tile.
Underneath: Wall flattened and primed first, layout run from the countertop so the cut row lands under the uppers where nobody looks.
1–2 install days
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Glass mosaic in a linear run. Glass bounces light around a galley kitchen, which is most of why it keeps showing up in small Boston condos.
Underneath: White thinset under glass — grey telegraphs straight through the tile and muddies the colour. Outlets cut, not covered.
1–2 install days
Get this look quotedA photo on a phone screen is not a tile. Our Tile Match Kit puts real samples in your hand for $25, hand-delivered across Greater Boston — and your $25 comes back as $50 off your install.
See the Tile Match KitThe tile is the easy part. Around here, what is behind it is usually a hundred years old — and that is what the quote is really about.
Triple-deckers and brownstones were framed for long spans and softwood subfloors, not for stone. Deflection is what cracks grout lines a year after the job. Every floor we tile gets an uncoupling membrane over a subfloor we have checked for flatness and screwed down first — that is standard on our installs, not an upsell.
If the wall behind your existing tile is plaster on lath, it comes out. Cement board or a foam board system goes in. Anyone quoting you to tile straight over old plaster in a wet area is quoting you a callback.
In a lot of Boston buildings, hard-surface flooring over an occupied unit means the bylaws want a sound-attenuation underlayment, and management wants a certificate of insurance naming the association before anyone lifts a tool. Worth checking before you fall in love with a tile.
Thinset and grout need above-freezing conditions to cure properly. In January that means materials get stored inside and the heat stays on — it does not mean the job waits until spring.
In a 1910 bathroom the walls are not plumb and the room is not square. We set the layout from the wall you see when you open the door, so the cuts land where nobody is looking instead of down the middle of the room.
Photos and rough dimensions are enough for a written quote — usually the same day, and free either way. We will also tell you if the pin you saved is hiding something, because a lot of them are.
Neighborhood pages with the local details — building stock, parking, what we run into.