Mill Valley Floor, December 2025

This Mill Valley washroom floor was completely by the book: a standard grid-pattern tile floor over a concrete slab. The client was on a budget, and we worked with him to make it happen.

I love installing tile over a concrete slab. Wood subfloors flex, settle, and move with the seasons, and tile has to be protected from all of that. A slab is solid, flat, and stable. It has very few irregularities to correct before tiling starts, and tile set on it almost never shifts or cracks over time. It’s about as good a foundation as tile gets.

With a sound base, the work comes down to layout and setting. A grid pattern is simple and timeless, but because every joint lines up, it’s also honest: any wandering line shows across the whole room. The layout was planned from the center so the cuts at the walls came out even, then the tile was set in polymer-modified thinset and kept straight and flush course by course.

Because the slab needed so little preparation, the job went very fast. A floor like this is one of the quickest ways to transform a room. The washroom went from dated to clean and finished in a short time, and the new floor added a lot of value, both to the room and to the home as a whole.

It’s a good example of how our system works best: a clear scope, good conditions, and a client who lets us do what we do. We come in, clear the schedule, and finish in days, not weeks.