Oh man, I'm sorry that happened. I'm not a pro and that does not look right to me. I think this is a rip out and re-do.

"He should have had a perfect line on the bottom, against the counter..."

There should be a continuous shim that is the thickness of the grout lines installed between the countertop and bottom row of tile. The tile are set on the shim and grouted, the shim pulled, and the perfectly spaced gap filled with color matched silicone.

This makes a flexible joint on a plane change. Setting tile directly on a counter creates an un-groutable, dirt-catching mess.

Let's let the guy finish his work before passing judgement please. I can't stand it when customers see something half finished and complain how it looks.

Joseph, So you think this will be fixed when he comes back in three days to do the last pass through? He did the grout last night and said this needs three days to cure before next step.

So you don’t think small slivers of tile need to be cut to be placed between the grout and the granite?

Small slivers will look worse. Let him finish caulking/grouting first and then see what you think. I have the same uneven kitchen.. although my guy did make them all level at the bottom so the uneven spots were hidden under my cabinets. I would wait and see..

He wrote back today that he’ll be back this afternoon to see if there was any shifting in the grout. I mentioned the areas to him are he wrote back with =

“Yes. My plan is to fill that in with more grout to make it flush with the tile. If you do not like that outcome I can add a sliver piece of tile.”

Any recommendations on what to tell him?

Here’s another area where a small sliver of tile was added to fill the depth and this looks good to me. Better than what I have shown above. Thoughts??

Yeah, that joint needs to be silicone caulk, never grout. All changes in plane need to be caulk as they will never move at the same time or rate and the grout will always crack.

Looks fine to me. Prolly have a toaster setting in front of it anyway.

it's unfortunate that the tile layer didn't realize that he could have had a level line throughout the tile had he not set it this way? Instead of cutting it exactly half (or starting it this way if it's on mosaic, he should've cut it horizontally not right at the half mark so all rows would have a piece beginning at the bottom?????? I can see it in my mind more than can explain it, what did you wind up doing? I want this look I'm going to do pickets in my kitchen remodel deciding on backsplash now as the last decision to make. Thank you for sharing this so I will definitely share with my tile layer to make SURE they do not start my tile at the counter this way!!

Pickets should be oriented vertically. The layout and the workmanship is just terrible.

They look great horizontal or vertical.