How a Tiles by Fox project works, start to finish

Tiles by Fox has been installing tile on Cape Cod since 2010. Lucas runs it, and most of our work has come from people who were sent to us by someone we had already worked for. That is pleasant, and it also means a lot of people arrive at the first conversation with no idea what to expect, because their neighbor handled all the details.

So this is the whole thing written down. If you are comparing us against two other installers, this is also what you should be able to get out of them — a described process rather than "we'll take a look and let you know."

1. You get in touch

Four ways, all of which reach us:

• The estimate form on this site
• The guided estimate, which walks through the questions step by step
• Call or text (774) 313-8512
• Email [email protected]

What helps us most in a first message:

• Your town. We work across Cape Cod and the South Shore, and the first thing we check is whether your project is in the area we can serve well.
• What room and what surface. Bathroom, shower, backsplash, floor, fireplace, a repair.
• Approximate dimensions, even rough ones.
• Your timing. "Before summer," "no rush," or an actual date.
• Photos. The most useful thing you can send. A wide shot of the room, the existing shower or surface, and anything that worries you.

You do not need to have chosen tile. Plenty of people get in touch with nothing but a room they are tired of, and that is a fine place to start.

2. Lucas calls you back

Usually the same day. Not a scheduler, not a salesperson — Lucas, who will be doing the work.

We are putting that in writing because it is the thing clients mention most, and not because of the tile. The common experience of hiring a contractor is leaving messages and waiting. The call back is deliberately the thing we are strictest about with ourselves.

That first call is short. We are establishing what the project is, whether it is in our area and our scope, roughly when you want it, and whether a visit makes sense. If it is not a good fit — out of area, or a scope we are not the right people for — we would rather say so on that call than take up three weeks of your time.

3. The site visit

Then we come and look, because a bathroom cannot be scoped from a photograph. What happens at the visit:

• We measure. Properly, for the quantities you will order.
• We put a straightedge on the walls and the floor. Flatness decides how much preparation the job needs, and that drives both the schedule and the number — especially for large-format tile, as the format article explains.
• We look at the subfloor and the existing shower. Movement, deflection, how the current one was built, and signs of water where it should not be.
• We talk about layout. Where courses start, how they land at the corners, the sightline from the door, the niche, the bench, the transitions.
• We talk about waterproofing. What system is going in and what the corners are getting. You are welcome to ask us the hard version of that question — it is question four on our own list.
• We tell you what we cannot see. Anything behind a wall is unknown until demolition. We say so now rather than presenting a surprise later.

Bring your inspiration to this visit. Photos you have saved, a tile sample, a Pinterest board. It is much easier to talk about what is possible in your actual room with the thing you like in hand.

4. The written estimate

You get a written estimate, usually within a couple of days of the visit. Written, so you can read it twice and compare it to someone else's.

What is in it:

• The scope. What we are doing, surface by surface.
• What is included, and just as importantly what is not — demolition and disposal, plumbing disconnect and reconnect, glass, paint afterwards. The exclusions are where two estimates stop being comparable.
• The substrate and waterproofing work, named rather than implied.
• The tile quantities to order — walls, shower floor, main floor — with overage for cuts and breakage.
• A realistic schedule, including the curing days when nobody will be in the house. Those days are in there on purpose; the timeline article explains why.
• Our registration number, MA HIC #219595, which belongs on a Massachusetts home improvement contract.

No price appears anywhere on this website, and there is no "starting at" figure, because a number without your room attached to it is meaningless and usually misleading. The number comes after the visit.

5. Deciding, and the schedule

Take your time. There is no expiring discount, because we do not run that play.

If you have questions about the estimate, ask them — a line item you do not understand is a line item we explained badly. If you are getting other estimates, compare the scopes rather than only the totals, and watch for who included substrate preparation and a named waterproofing system and who did not.

When you go ahead, we set a start date and you get a written contract, which Massachusetts expects for residential home improvement work. Scheduling is honest: if we are booked six weeks out, you will be told six weeks, not "soon." A couple of things worth knowing about timing on the Cape:

• Winter fills up in the fall. December through March is when Cape bathrooms get redone, and those slots get claimed in October and November.
• Summer is awkward for bathrooms in a house with guests or rentals, and better for a backsplash or a one-day job.
• A backsplash can often fit sooner, because it is usually a single day and slots between larger jobs.

6. Ordering your tile

Normally you buy the tile. You are choosing it, you should own the choice, and you get to see it in person before committing.

What we give you is the exact quantity to order for each surface, including overage. We will also point you to local suppliers, and go with you if that helps — a lot of decisions get easier standing in front of the material.

Two things we ask:

1. Have everything on site before day one, including the trim pieces. A job that starts short one box is a job that stops.
2. Buy one extra box beyond the overage and keep it. Tile gets discontinued. The day a tile cracks in 2032, that box in the basement is the difference between a repair and a conversation about redoing the floor.

If you want help narrowing the choice, that is part of the conversation — material, format, finish and grout together, not separately. The material article covers what we would be weighing.

7. The build

The sequence is laid out day by day in the timeline article. What matters here is how it runs:

• Protection goes down first. Paths, doorways, dust containment.
• We tell you the day before demolition what to expect, because it is the loudest and dustiest day.
• If something is found behind the wall, you hear it that day. With photos, with what it means, and with the cost before any extra work happens — not as a line on a final invoice.
• Waterproofing gets its full cure. We will not shorten it, and we will tell you which days are curing days so a quiet day is not a mystery.
• You hear about a change in the schedule from us, first. Weather, a sick day, a delay from another trade. The thing that annoys people is not a delay; it is finding out about the delay by showing up to an empty house.
• Cutting happens outside or in the garage where it can.
• We clean up at the end of each day, not only at the end of the job.

If someone works from home, a baby naps at a fixed hour, or a dog cannot be near an open door, tell us. Most of that is easy to work around when we know about it.

8. The walk-through

When the tile work is done we walk the room with you, in good light, together. We look at it with you rather than handing over a key.

You get:

• When you can use the shower. An actual date, after grout cure and sealing, not "give it a few days."
• How to care for what you have. Which cleaners are fine and which are not — this matters more with natural stone and with cement grout, and the humidity article goes into the routine.
• What is normal and what is not. Caulk at the change-of-plane joints is correct and will eventually need resealing. A hollow-sounding tile is not normal, and we want to know.
• A punch list if there is one. If something needs attention, it goes on a list with a date rather than a vague promise.

Glass is often still in production at this point. That is normal and it is covered in the timeline.

9. Afterwards

You can call. If something looks wrong six months later, we want to hear about it — a problem found early is almost always smaller than the same problem found late, and in a referral business a bathroom that quietly fails in year three is worse for us than for you.

And if you are happy with the work, a review on Google is genuinely the most useful thing you can do for us. We will ask once, we will not chase you, and we will never ask you to say anything other than what you actually think.

Who we work with

Homeowners are most of our work — year-round residents, seasonal owners who are not here while the work happens, and people getting a house ready to sell.

Designers and builders are welcome. If you are a GC or designer who needs the tile scope done properly and communicated, send plans, location and schedule and we will talk about the installation scope. There is a partnership track for that rather than a homeowner estimate flow.

Where we work: across Cape Cod — Sandwich, Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, Barnstable and Hyannis, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans and the Outer Cape — and over the bridge on the South Shore including Plymouth, Wareham, Kingston, Carver, Duxbury and Marshfield. Not sure about your town? Ask. We would rather tell you honestly than have you wonder.

Questions we get asked

This describes how we run our own projects on Cape Cod and the South Shore. Response times and schedule intervals here are what we aim for and what clients typically experience, not a contractual guarantee — the commitments for your project are the ones written in your estimate and contract.