I'd complain to your contractor. Have him rip them out and start over. That looks bad.

Or, have him regrout it with a whiter grout...closer to the tile color.

The only thing I am seeing is that on the sheet itself some of the spaces are a bit larger than others? I am thinking that on a large scale and on the floor this is not going to bother you. We just did a big renovation and I know that when things are first done you notice every tiny imperfection, but I doubt you will dwell on this later.

Given the first comment, maybe I am missing something?? When it comes to grout color the contrast is usually a personal preference. I think given that this is on the floor the grey is a good choice.

^ I agree sam. Grey grout with white hex tile is classic and looks nice to provide contrast and hide dirt.

But the second picture, on a larger scale, looks off and very inconsistent to me. You can tell they were sheets. It would bother me.

I have to say this looks very much like all of the original hex tile bathroom floors I've seen in the 1920's era houses in our neighborhood. I'm not sure whether that is a comfort or not, but I'm very used to seeing small differences in the width of the grout between tiles that are exaggerated by the contrasting darker grout color needed for a floor. I'm not certain whether the grout was that dark when they were first laid, but it is the color now, and it does highlight imperfections of spacing. I'm also not sure whether the imperfect spacing is original or a product of shifting in an old house or possibly a few repairs to chipped tiles over the years. But to me the imperfections look normal, but possibly not what you expect a new installation to look like today.

We do tend to look at a photo with a more critical eye.

I've been told though, that I'm very critical. Haha!

At first when I looked at the second picture I thought you could see the individual sheets also, but then I kept looking and I think it's only a couple of lines I see. But now I am getting dizzy! Overall I still think that given that this is the floor, it won't be too bothersome.

I do think I could tolerate it with a white grout, but I definitely want grey grout. It looks to me like they rushed through it and the contractor did say it wasn't up to par. I just wonder how under par it is.

You paid for it to be installed by a professional- do you feel you got what you paid for? It would drive me nuts. Don't settle.

I think the floor looks great. If one stares very intently looking for a problem, one can see some very minor variations in the spacing. I know when I first get something done I look at it very hard and notice any imperfections. That fades pretty soon and I don't even notice them anymore. I certainly do not think that this should be ripped out, especially since this is a floor, rather than on the wall.

Assuming this is machine made tile, dimensional accuracy is much better than with hand made material. In your case, if it was the tile, it would be a consistent issue throughout the floor. However, there appears to be no consistency with the grout joint irregularities because some sheets have the same spacing between them as within them where others do not. If the subfloor had irregularities...uneven, poorly spaced seams. screws not drilled in far enough, etc. then the irregularities cause an individual tile to tilt to one side or another affecting the width of the grout joint as well. So who or what is to blame? Your tile, the GC's subfloor or the tiler?

If you had to do this over, your GC should eliminate potential problems before they happen or at least put himself in a position to know where the responsibility rests if there ia a poor outcome. 1. The installer prepares the floor with tiling cement or a leveling product to provide the best surface possible. 2. A sampling of the tile is "dry laid" to expose quality/dimensional issues and layout considerations. 3. With two of the three bases covered, a poor tile installation is then a direct result of an unqualified installer.

Is this worth laying across the tracks for? Only you can be the judge.

Re grout with lighter grout.

Thanks Scott Design... it was laid on a fairly new concrete slab so I think we can eliminate that. I did see it laid out for a night before grouting, but to my unexperienced eyes it looked fine and I didn't get closer to measure the spacing. It feels wasteful to me to rip it out and start over, but I think we'd have to do that if we put the house up for sale in the near future. It's something that a prospective homebuyer would notice.

This would bother me, sorry to say, especially if I'd paid a "professional" to do the install. I'd ask them to re-do.

If all else fails, I would take a black sharpie and mark the thicker lines black and create a chemistry outline on the floor and then work on a "Beautiful Mind" theme for the rest of the bathroom. Seriously - if it bothers you that much you may have to rip it out. Or decide if you can get some compensation from the tiler and contribute that to some element that is eye level that is the distracting wow factor....

That is definately contractor error. If you look at hex tile, the edges are made to meet up with the next hex on the next sheet, and you can see where each sheet is not butt up correctly with the other. That would drive me nuts, and it's a shame and I agree, seems wasteful. I would have said contractor pay for the tile and redo. I just tore out some dated tile and had new tile laid. It's dusty and messy, but not impossible. I was thinking of having penny tile put down, but went with a square carrara sheets instead, but when I was reading about the penny tile somewhere, someone wrote to make sure the contractor has laid hex or penny tile before, because it can be tricky.

If you are seeing individual sheets (maybe I am just getting crossed eyed looking at the pic and don't see that) I understand asking for a redo if you are honing in on it. We have hexagons on our shower floor and as my kitchen backsplash and I just inspected them and there is no visible separation between sheets. Any variations in an individual grout line I am assuming are because it's a natural stone.

I think it's more noticeable in this case because the tile chosen looks like a solid color porcelain. If the tile chosen had more variation (like a marble) or a colored pattern (like Groveraxle's) the grout lines would not be as noticeable.

Since there is no pattern or variation in the tile, the grout lines provide the pattern...and unfortunately to me look inconsistent.

Obviously you are not happy with the job your contractor did, make it do it properly!

It looks to me like it is a quality of tile issue and not the tile installers fault. I assume those came mesh mounted on a sheet. Even if you have it re-done with the same tile you will get the same result.

Knight, there is a lot of play in those mesh mounted sheets and it's tricky to line them up. I can't tell you how many times I laid a sheet and had to pick it up, clean it off, and replace it. I finally discovered a trick that helped: putting the tile over a previously laid sheet and sliding it into place. Even then, you can see my job is far from perfect. A contractor just trying to get done might not have taken such care.

That said, if it were my floor, I think I'd ask for an adjustment and then buy a nice rug to throw over it.

This is disappointing. I am stewing over a grout problem on our bathroom floor right now too. The problem is you have all that time to just SIT and stare at the floor!! I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet either-but it's so annoying first thing in the morning!

@rinaleedee & vkilpatrick,
I understand how both of you feel! I'm in the process of stripping my kitchen cabinets after having spent $58.000 for a kitchen remodel, only to have the cabinets blister and chip! The company I had do the job went bankrupt, gee... wonder why! LOL! Please don't put up with a job that was not properly done! You paid to have an expert do the job, and they should make it right!! :)

Holy crap halfpint! What a nightmare!

that looks like a perfectly normal install of hex tile to me.

as groveraxle states, it's VERY difficult to get them perfect every time, and it really is just the nature of the beast.

have you lived with it long? if this is the first week, call the contractor and tell them you're unhappy, and are thinking of asking them to come back and redo. then ask them to come back a week from then. if it hasn't bothered you as much that second week, call him back and tell him nevermind. it will end up bothering you less and less as time goes by.

if you're just as bothered at the end of the second week, you've made the right decision asking him to come back.

good luck.

@vkilpatrick,
Hi, it has been a nightmare, but I learned some hard lessons in the process.

I am a very particular person as well and tend to be very critical but when it comes to mosaic tile, which I love, I feel that part of its charm is that it is never perfect. To my mind it just looks like it has been individually laid instead of laid in sheets - kind of old school! That being said you have to live with it and if your eye is drawn to it every time you go into the room then the best bet is to re-do it.

Definitely have them ripped out. We built our house 23 years ago, and let some things slide due to time constraints. Those things still bug me. When it is wrong, it is wrong. A good contractor will redo this with no complaints.

I can see what happened. In laying tile, you need to draw chalk snap lines on the floor to make sure things are lined up. With small tiles, things can get twisted and with sheets of tiny tiles, no tile spacers are used. You could get a discount if they don't want to take the tiles out but I would expect better from a professional.

This is typical of mosiac tile . I have seen very few perfectly spaced mosaics. If the mosiac is built wrong its almost impossible to fix everything because the glue sets in 15-30 min. You have to get the worse areas and on Mosiacs grout with a grout color tht is the same color as the tile. The larger square mosaics spacing isn't as bad because there is less grout lines to stare at. The more grout lies the harder to fix and more errors. No one but you will notice because there is only so much your eye can notice when looking at the whole floor and no one s going to stare at your floor unless their drunk.

It is the color of the grout which bothers me. Because it is on your wall, I think a lighter grout would help.

We just had our honeycomb tile installed and we are having the same issue. I went online to look for information because our contractor said that what he did is as good as it gets. We had the same tile installed in another home we lived in 4 years ago and the grout lines were perfect. It can be done, it just needs to be done by a person who knows what they're doing and takes pride in their work. We are going to have our tile re-done because I KNOW it will drive me CRAZY. What did you end up doing with your floor?

I don't know what you ever had done about the hex tile, but I can tell you from experience that whoever laid your tile did an extremely POOR job of it. Hex tiles do take more time and planning, but if your installer knows what he's doing, there should be NO problems with lining up the sheets or even making sure the individual tiles in the sheet are lined up evenly.. Our very expensive hex was even glued on the sheet with some of the tiles twisted clockwise. It really shows! Our installer told us "that's the way they come from the factory and that's the way we put them up". We found out later that all he had to do was take an Exacto knife, make a slice around two sides of the tile and then twist it slightly into place (explained on line). We had a border in the shower that he assured us he could do. He just didn't tell us that the tile would not be cut straight, laid flat or spaced evenly. Many of the border tiles stick out farther than the tile around them so it will be impossible to do a decent even grout line either up, down, side to side OR depth wise. It took them 2 days to do our large shower and after 4 months and

phone calls from us (not one return call from them) and visits to their store (the owner was NEVER in) they are finally coming to rip it out tomorrow. We will find someone who knows what they're doing to retile our newly built bathroom.

I know this is an old post, but I’m commenting to Ginny, latest post. Not sure what size tiles you have (Hex and others) but those potential grout lines look very large. It could be because of the photo angle, but boy those tiles look way farther apart than I would accept.

Never ever use a dark grout on light hex mosaic sheets. It makes the already hard to get straight joints look even worse if a tiny bit off. Alot of sheets come from the factory with imperfections in the spacing or just not being the same shape as other sheets. Makes it tough. Def dry lay the floor to check fit, make sure you have two good perpindicular lines to start from and always use color matching grout or grout that is just a little darker than the tile. Black grout on white hex mosaics equals trouble. Im a pro and refuse to lay hex mosaics if the homeowner insists on a dark contrasting grout color, Its because i know i cant control the quality of the spacing of tiles in the sheet itself or the shape of the mosaic sheet compared to the others. Im not going to do a job that i know ahead of time the owner will be able to see imperfections in. Dark grout on light hex mosaic sheets make any differences in joint width look like they are under a magnifying glass. Any true pro should give you the same advice.