Appreciation post: old tile guy Carlos who told me to stop being so perfect

I was talking to this older guy Carlos who did tile work for like 30 years up in Santa Fe. He was helping me out on a backsplash job last month and I was going crazy trying to get every single grout line exactly level. He just laughed and said you're fighting the house not the tile, the walls are never flat. He said he learned that after his first year when he redid a whole kitchen floor three times trying to get it perfect. It hit different because I've been burning so much time being a perfectionist on jobs that nobody will ever notice. But then again part of me thinks quality is quality and you should aim for best you can. What do you guys think? Do you settle for good enough or fight it till it's dead level?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahhernandez29d ago

Respectfully that whole "nobody will ever notice" thing is just an excuse to do sloppy work.

carter.julia29d ago

Carlos has been doing this long enough to know what actually matters. But where do you draw the line between good enough and sloppy? Can you tell me an exact measurement or tolerance you use to decide when a joint is close enough vs needs to be redone?