Oh wow. Your gut reaction is right, it's absolutely not acceptable and he is trying to BS his way out of it! I don't know what the fix is, but document the heck out of what you saw him doing, take lots of pictures from every angle and whatever you do, don't allow him to continue working on it. Maybe one of the pro's has a fix for it, but the only one I know of is to rip it out and do it over. It's really good that you haven't paid him yet, as I suspect his paycheck is going to go towards the purchase of new tile and paying someone else to redo it.

He's wrong. It IS that bad. He doesn't appear to have any experience. Or skill. It's a shame that the job progressed this far without anyone noticing that. No, it is not acceptable.

I wouldn't be satisfied. What a bummer.

Tell him he gets one chance to fix this.

Looks as if there's only thinset. It doesn't look like it's grouted at all. The really bad tiles look buckled. I imagine the offending tiles could be removed and new tile installed in line with the tile above and below it. And then the whole wall needs to be grouted so that the groutlines are even with the tiles.

I doubt that your original installer will be able to fix this. He doesn't seem to know what a grouted install is supposed to look like.

Close up of our (by no means perfect) first time diy tile job. The grout lines are just barely dented. (The wide angle lens is distorting, the grout lines are straight and the wall is flat.) If we first timers could do this, then your "professional" has no business to be in the business.

That's a speed bump at the taped seam :(

The only fix I'd accept is a check for the material cost and demo , but that's not a realistic expectation unfortunately. He's got to be give a chance to fix it first , which he probably won't be keen on or even able to accomplish. At that point you can go after him for $$$ , but it'll be messy.

Best hope is for your contractor to step to the plate and make it right. If he's not on board that this is a crap job, you've got BIG trouble ahead.

Tell him "it's really hard to write you a check for the full amount, so here's a check for 10% of the amount due."

If he complains, tell him the check you wrote "is really not that bad".

Yes, sarcasm intended.

When you build over a substandard base, you accept responsibility for your substandard work.

Oh, and..."It's bad".

It really is.

Crappy work agreed. How much responsibility falls on the decision to hire a budget handyman in the first place? telluwhat ye gets whats ye pay fer. This not the work of even a semi skilled tile mechanic

What makes you so sure she hired a "budget handyman?"

If this is an example of his work, I'd worry more about proper waterproofing behind the tile. Do you know how that was accomplished? Are the changes of plane grouted or caulked ? Glass tile in particular has a high rate of expansion and contraction. Caulking at the changes of plane is very important.

Just wanted to give a follow up. The contractor was a professional company and had previously done another bathroom of ours. The issue with them this time, as it turned out, was the glass tile (the last one was stone) . After I mentioned the comments from this site, he agreed that the job wasn't done well, and he admitted he had rushed to finish it, in order to start another job.

It seemed that with glass, he had to go slower because by rushing, parts sagged which caused issues.

He has been able to remove pieces of the glass tile (without breaking other pieces) and properly set it - there are a lot of pieces which needed replacing. He plans on finishing it today.

The second issue turned out to be too much water in the grout. So he is going to redo the grout.

I feel we have come to a good understanding. I like that he admitted his mistakes and is wants to make it right.

Glad you have a good resolution.

I hope you'll post pictures after he has finished repairing.

I would love to see the finished product as well.

A great function Houzz/Gardenweb has, is that little flag icon.

So he is going to scrape all the grout out of the shower & redo it? That is going to be a REALLY hard job. What type of grout did he use? Make sure if he is just putting over top of the existing grout that that is correct with the type of grout you have.

Safe demo and cleanup without destroying the tile/etc will take longer than the installl!!

Nah, he'll probably take an angle grinder and cut his way through the grout and some tile. And rushing to another job ain't no excuse for this. He lacks knowledge. Any pictures of that other bathroom he did for you?

After he "fixes" this MAKE SURE YOU PUT PHOTOS HERE BEFORE PAYING HIM. Never saw a worse tile job than that on your photos. Ask him "why is that other job more important than our tile job, after all both of us pay you well"? millworkman, he's a fraudulent, no excuse for such crap, it looks like as if he was drunk or druged when he stickied tiles.

The problem with the fix being proposed is that it destroys the integrity of the waterproofing membrane underneath. He did waterproof this before the initial tiling I hope?

I've seen expert installers have a bad day where everything goes wrong. At least he took responsibility for doing a poor job and is willing to correct the problems. I hope it works out good for all concerned.