Putting tile in an entire house

[MaryAnn]

Stuff I learned the hard way; I'm not as picky as Wade but I'm pretty picky and it took me quite a few interviews before I chose an installer. I'm happy with him. But here's what I wish I had known that I didn't, even after learning an immense amount from interviewing installers.

1. Get your installer first; listen to what he says about which stores sell better tile, and why you might want to use one over another.

2. When your tile comes in, go pick up ONE box, open it, and compare it to the tile you used to decide what tile you wanted. I ended up with 2000+ square feet of tile that did not match the sample I used to order it, and while it is "acceptable" it is not what I thought I chose, even though the name is the same etc. The dye lot is different from the sample, darker and greenish instead of white. I'm literally going to have to repaint about half the interior of the house to not clash with the new tile.

3. Tiling a bathroom might be a fine DIY job but tiling an entire house with multiple halls is way beyond that....there are many non-square things in a typical house, and in retrospect I would have done colored polished cement. It's really obvious when straight tile has to be cut to fit a non-straight wall that looked fine with carpet and would look fine with polished cement. Which I initially rejected as too expensive but have ended up spending quite a bit more to get an installer who met my criteria. Even he is having problems, and I can't imagine how it would have turned out had I hired the cheap guy who told me he would just start with the line made by the removed tile and go from there. I like the way it looks (half done) WAY better than the dirty slab I've been living with for two years, but....I know too much when I look at it, and it's not the color I thought I bought.

Etc....most of you guys are technical enough that maybe you would know a whole lot more than I did when I started. Tile and concrete are common here due to the climate. Quite a few have no carpet at all, just rugs here and there.