HI,

I called my husband to ask him. He is a mason and also installs tile.

He said the prices sound reasonable for basic tile. For marble/slate/stone he would charge $12/sqft. For the niche etc he said it is extra because of the detail work. For marble, he explained for borders, niches and edges that show...he has to hand sand the edges. He installed the terra cotta for our fireplace and the edges that were exposed he made handmade chips in the terra cotta to make it look old and not a sawn finish (the tile is reclaimed 100+ years old)

It doesn't hurt to get more quotes for piece of mind though. Good luck!

I'm blown away by those prices. $6..$9/sf labor ?!? $12/sf labor for stone tiles?
What's the hourly wage for this relatively unskilled labor (in the sense that a few months of laying tile is enough to acquire the skill)?

So 1000sf would cost between $6000 to $12000? If one lays 50 tiles a day (assuming about 6 tiles an hour, one tile = 10 minutes (LOL!, let's make it a diluted 6 minutes to account for mixing mortar, laying out tiles and grouting)) one could make up to $12000 / month for this type of work. Incredible!

I'd not pay more than $3/sf labor - anything more than that and it's DIY time.

ditto what jr said. Those prices are waaay too high.

Location makes a big difference, where are you located?

Just had mine quoted: Labor & Setting Materials (mortar, grout, backerboard, shower waterproofing stuff, etc) = $6 sqft for floors, $6.50 sqft walls. Upcharges = setting the tiles diagonally $0.50 sq ft, setting accent tiles $10 ea, can't recall the cost of the niches right off. With a tile budget for the tile itself of $5.50 sqft, my total estimate is in the neighborhood of $5,000 for tiling 3 bath floors, 1 laundry floor, 2 tub surrounds, 4x5 master shower (includes tiling shower floor)& 1' high tilework around master tub. I'm in central NC.

We had the installer out to measure last week. My this sounds really expensive, I'm scared to get our pricing back!!

Mydreamhome quote sounds like exactly what I paid. Also in NC. They did a great job - better than I could do. Also better than someone who I paid $3 a sqft to do.

That $6 sqft covered some profit for the company, insurance etc. I'm sure the actual installer saw $3. The trick is finding someone with no extra overhead who does a good job.

When you figure mortar costs $45-50 for a bag which covers 25-30 square foot, that is already approx $1.60 a foot. Now figure in labor and all the other expenses to run a business. I'm sure you could get someone to install for half that, like I did several years ago who installed many of my quartz tiles upside down (ribbed bottom showing on top!) and never to be seen again. We've had friends calling him up to fix others mistakes. One friend had tiles that didn't even line up properly where the inside corners meet in the bathroom and another where his mosaic kitchen backsplash was not level because the installer didn't account for walls that bowed out a bit in places.

Relatively unskilled? How insulting. A few months to become skilled? Get a clue. My husband studied, trained and was certified in Europe 20 years ago (where it is required) and people cannot believe his skill and detail. Tile is relatively permanent. Do you really want to scrimp on having a window installer etc lay your tiles? What about backerboard? I've walked on tiles where it wasn't used or only 1/4 used and if you like crunchy sounding floors, by all means hire the cheepies. As with everything...you get what you pay for.

LOL - you make it sound like it's rocket science. It's laying out tiles, spreading mortar and sticking them down...

Studied, trained and certified in EUROPE Bwahahaha!!!

I studied, trained for 2 weeks and was not certified (though I did grow up in Europe) and was able to set the following tiles myself (also did all the CAD work myself):

OP here,
FYI, we're in Long Island, a suburb of NYC. so we are in a high cost market.

this did include mud, but not backer board, that will be up. It also did not include a shower floor, we have a preformed pan.

Also, this is a tile guy who works mainly for GCs, my brother in law is GCing the job, we technically should be getting a straight sub price with no extra markup, although I don't know if thats what the guy gave me.

no sanding of edges here, straight porcelain tile with bullnoses.

we're getting another quote, I'm trying to make peace with the pricing. if the 6.50 for the walls is an ok price, the floor costs I can see where they're coming from with an extra 2 a swft to bed in the radiant.

basically there wasn't anything in there that was surprising except the base costs are probably about $2 more PSF than I was expecting.
total cost was around $6K

Chrisk --- we are in the city of Chicago, a high cost market as well.

I don't really know what others charge, except for the jobs I've had done pre-husband. Approx 8 years ago I remodeled kitchen..the GC charged $85 an hour flat fee for everything from cabinet install and tile install. The tile was all handmade though (Fire and Earth Ann Sacks) which ran $175 a sq..so they did have to account for that. If they break or damage, they pay. A small powder room was a flat $500 around the same time for approx 35 sqft. not including tile.

Keep us posted on other quotes.

I'm in AR and my tile guy did 3 showers and bath floors plus put down radiant wire for MBath and closet and tiles tub deck and apron. Both upstairs showers have a niche and master has two.

Total labor=$8500

I'm in upstate NY and I just got my quote for tile installation. It's a one man tile outfit that we've used before and his quote was $5/sq ft for wall tile. So adjusting for area, and probably using a larger outfit than ours the $6-$9 sounds reasonable to me. Though my guy did say his floor tile price was cheaper than his wall tile price (larger tile, easier to lay, etc) so I'm surprised by that part.