She’s a wonderful writer, blogger, modwalls® customer and fellow Orla Kiely devotee.
Laura will be posting here periodically as she documents the process of selecting, obtaining and installing tile for her modern home construction project. For more on Laura and her life, please catch her blog:
The Ricksalicious Life
Knowing The Score
I have to admit, I was pretty naive about tile. Actually, I've found that I’m pretty naive about everything when it comes to construction ever since my husband and I decided to build our new home.
But I’m also lucky. We were able to find a brilliant architect, Dave Brach, who not only got our style, but also got that we have a budget and needed to stick to it. And, like us, he also has two young children, so he totally understood that our new house needed to not only be beautiful and modern, but also functional. Here’s what he came up with:
We loved his design and how it fit into the mid-century neighborhood we're building in. But along with great mid-century design comes impeccable, modern tile, and that’s when I started to see I had gotten myself into trouble.
First, I found that although our builder had included a budget for tile, it was small, and would cover only the most pedestrian, beige, tumbled stone stuff stocked by our local tile warehouse. That, of course, just wouldn’t do. Thus began my tile quest. I thought, “Hey, affordable, cool, modern tile shouldn’t be hard to find, right?” Wrong.
First, I went to the tile showrooms. Our builder called these places “The Candy Store,” and boy, he wasn’t kidding. I walked in the front door and was bombarded with amazing displays, rows and rows of samples, and lots of sales people. At first I thought I had found a little slice of heaven, but I didn’t see what was lurking just below the surface: the price book.
After being blown away by the glass mosaic and penny round tiles, I found a salesman and started asking what all this costs. That’s when he pulled out what I think is the fattest three ring binder I have ever seen and started flipping through spreadsheet after spreadsheet of prices. After what seemed like an eternity, he found the page, and I saw that my favorite glass tile was $113 per square foot. That’s right, $113.00. Per square foot. But wait, he told me; they do offer a contractor discount. Whew, I thought. Then I found that, with the discount we were still talking over $100 per square foot. Oh yeah, and did he mention the shipping costs since this is a special order? They would be almost $300 on top of that staggering per sq. ft. price. Then I got to thinking. I realized that those amazing displays don’t come cheap, and that sales guy has to make a salary. And then there’s the rent on their showroom and warehouse, and then it all started to make sense. Like I said, I was naive, but I’m also a quick study.
So, I figured the Internet was the way to go. After countless Google searches for modern tile, I found a handful of places to choose from. Many of them only dealt with closeout items, so their style and color selection were quite limited. Others had cool tile that was still pretty pricey, but I finally found one that had some of the 3x6 glass subway tile I had fallen in love with at the tile showroom, but was considerably cheaper. I saw that this site offered samples, but when I went to order one I found I had to order a whole square foot of the tile for the per. Sq. Ft. price, and then pay $7 for shipping on top of that. Then I started to get suspicious. I decided to put the tile in my cart and check out what the total would be, and was shocked to see that this company was going to charge me $465 for the shipping alone. Well, after some quick calculations, I found if you added in the shipping this tile ended up costing the same as what I had found at the tile showroom. Without the contractor discount. So what good was the Internet when I wasn’t going to be saving anything at all?
I went back to the Google search drawing board and saw something I had overlooked before, a website called modwalls. I clicked the link tentatively and found a colorful, well-designed, user-friendly site that was completely unlike the other tile websites I had found that looked like they had been put together by somebody’s deadbeat brother that was out of work. And then there was the tile. Their product line was exactly what I had been looking for, and their tile was a fraction of the price of what I had found in the showrooms. When I read that their Brio Glass Mosaic Tile was only $4.25 per sq. ft., I thought it was a typo, but as I scrolled down the page I realized that these guys are either really bad typists or I just ran across the tile deal of the century.
And then there’s the ModDotz. I had been looking for penny round tile for my kid’s bathroom, but all I could find at my local showrooms were weird colors , ones that were unglazed and looked like they would pick up dirt, or uber-expensive glass penny rounds (they were the ones that cost over $100 per sq. ft.). When I saw ModDotz, I couldn’t believe that someone finally got it right, and in all the right colors, and for the truly affordable price of only $12.95 per sq. ft.
And then I found Lush. This is the tile of my dreams for my Master Bathroom. I drooled over the beautiful, thick 3x6 subway tile in tons of clean, modern colors and great blends. And there were other sizes as well, including 1x2 and ½ x 2 subway tile.
And they even had ModRocks, which I had planned to use on the floor of the shower in our master bathroom after seeing it in a magazine. They even had ModRocks in a variety of colors and sizes, so I could perfectly match my tile or grout and get the exact look I wanted.
So, this all looks great, I thought, but what’s the catch.
First I looked into ordering samples, expecting to be overcharged like the other websites. But I saw that they offered samples for 10 different products for $17.95, 5 different products for $10.95, and Brio Blends for $5.95, shipped USPS Priority Mail, absolutely free of charge. Okay, score one for modwalls.
Second question: Sure, the prices look great, but what am I going to have to pay for shipping? That’s when I saw the blue box at the top right hand side of their homepage that gave me the good news that modwalls offers free shipping on orders over $200, so what they say I pay for the tile is actually what I pay for the tile. Score another point for modwalls.
And then I thought, “If only they offered trade discounts like the tile showrooms,” but after a little search under Customer Care, I saw that my contractor could open a Trade Account and receive the same discounts as he would get from the tile showrooms. Score yet another point for modwalls.
I was starting to feel a little better about all this.
That’s when I started wishing I could see this tile in action in a showroom to see what it really looked like installed. Again, modwalls was one step ahead of me. After clicking the Portfolio link on their homepage I found a great gallery of real life applications of their products, many of which were taken by satisfied customers in their own homes. I found this much more convincing that the sterile, strategically lit showroom because I could see how modwalls’ products would work in my real life. All right then, as I see it, that makes the final score modwalls: 4, All Those Other Tile Options: 0.
Which leads me to my final question: Why would I buy tile anywhere else?
I’m off to order my samples...I'll let you know how it goes.
Laura Ricks
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