Well, here’s a thing

I mentioned in my last post that having many weeks ago chosen the tiles that I wanted for my bathroom, it now transpires that the supplier says they are out of production and no longer available. As I particularly liked the tiles that I’d chosen, the one in plain brilliant white and other ‘brillant’ with a wave motif, I said that I wasn’t interested in selecting alternatives and would look for another supplier.

The way things work is that the builder specified three alternative suppliers and an upper budget limit and it was then up to me to make my choice of tile. Things became slightly complicated because whereas the builder is only contractually required to tile the two ‘faïences’ (the two walls comprising the end and side of the walk-in shower) I want to tile the whole bathroom and want to add a second tile to break up what would otherwise be plain walls.

As I want both tiles to be the same colour ie brilliant white, it makes sense to source them both from the same manufacturer in order to achieve perfect colour matching. This meant that I will have to pay for extra tiles of the one that the builder will be putting up plus as many of the second, patterned, tile that I’ll need to complete the whole room.

But that’s not all. Because I also want to use the same tiles to tile the whole of the separate WC, the walls over the worktops in the kitchen and, most likely, parts of the walls in the utility room, I’ll actually be paying for significantly more tiles than the builder will.

I hadn’t bothered thinking much about this until yesterday. On Friday I visited both of the other specified tile suppliers and made my new choices from one of them. Both were slightly more expensive than the ones I’d originally chosen but I figured that I’d have to just bite the bullet. The plain white one was priced at 24.90€/m2 and the one with the wave motif at 25.90€. And those were my prices, of course, because the builder will have a trade account with the supplier and enjoy a trade discount.

But on Saturday I went to Leroy Merlin to check on a couple of things that I’ll soon be needing to buy and while I was there I thought that I’d take a quick look in their tile section. I was surprised to find that they also offer tiles identical to the ones that I’d chosen the day before, but was even more surprised when I looked at the prices. Here’s what I saw.

The plain tile was 10€/m2, or 40% less than I’d agreed to the day before for an identical tile from the other supplier, and the one with the wave motif 9€/m2 less. In fact I’m entitled to a 10% discount on my Leroy Merlin loyalty card, so the plain tile will actually come out to 13.41€/m2 (11.49€/m2 less) and the patterned one to 15.21€/m2 (10.69€/m2 less).

These savings are really worth having so I’ve presented the builder with a proposition. I’ve suggested that either they source the (plain) tiles for the two bathroom ‘faïences’ from Leroy Merlin so I can also source the other tiles that I’ll be needing from them safe in the knowledge that they’ll all match or I’ll source ALL of the tiles that will be needed for all areas in the house, including the ones that the builder will be putting up, and they can make me an allowance or a consideration for the ones that they would have provided. I should get an answer tomorrow.

It’s a bit difficult showing photos of the two tiles on here but Leroy Merlin have an excellent image in the right setting of them both which especially features the one with the wave motif. I’ve shown it below.

I haven’t decided what I’ll be doing in my bathroom just yet. I like how they’ve used it as a panel in the shower but alternatives are to feature it on one complete wall or as a horizontal strip or band, for example, around all four, as in the image below.

But that’s for later and the first thing is to get an agreement with the builder and cancel the arrangement that I proposed with the new supplier on Friday 😐

FOOTNOTE

We’ve had an awful day today with gale force winds. The gusts became stronger and stronger almost as though, having destroyed one of my ‘tonnelles’ a week or so ago, they wanted to do harm to the second one also. Well, I’m sad to say that they succeeded in doing so, ripping the top panel off its roof. So here I am, almost at the end of my exile in my caravan after 21 months with the end in sight, having started off with three ‘tonnelles’ and now ending up with none. The weather gods had it in for me for sure for some reason, why I do not know 🙁