The time a flooring guy told me to stop leveling everything

I was helping a buddy lay tile in his 1920s bungalow in Portland, and this old flooring guy came by to drop off some trim. He saw me stressing over a 1/4 inch dip and said 'you're fighting a hundred year old house, just let the tile float and nobody will notice.' He was right, I spent way too long trying to make it perfect and the floor came out fine. Anyone else have a pro give you advice that saved you hours?

2 comments

2 Comments

dylan_thompson8d ago

Hold on though, I hear this kind of advice a lot and I think it gets taken too far. A quarter inch dip in a 1920s house is one thing, but I've seen people use this same logic to justify really sloppy work. If you're putting down expensive tile in a new build or a remodel you plan to live in for years, a quarter inch matters. It catches your eye every single time you walk into the room and look at the floor. The old pro was right that you don't need to fight a hundred year old house to the death, but I think people use that excuse to skip the work that actually makes a difference. Good prep is the difference between a floor that looks fine and one that looks great for the next twenty years.

haydenj908d agoMost Upvoted

Flip it around though - sometimes being too picky makes you miss the bigger picture. Seen plenty of floors where the homeowner obsessed over one corner being perfect while the whole thing shifts and cracks six months later because the subfloor wasn't stable enough.