The Tile Guy Diaries — the life of a tile installer
I'm Simon Beames. Manchester lad, twenty-six years on tile, now working out of Colorado Springs. The rest of this site is the business — prices, services, all that. This bit isn't. This is the life: the jobs that went wrong, the ones that went right, the mates, the mistakes, the mosaics, and what a quarter-century on your knees does to a man. No sales pitch. Just the diary.
October 2026 · Entry 3
Twenty-six years of tile means twenty-six years of things going wrong — showers torn out, backsplashes torn out, work ripped up and redone, including my own, by me. This one's about why I'm still standing: you can leave, you can cry, or you can own it.
October 2026 · Entry 2
I have ADHD, and most of the day my head is forty tabs open at once. Put me at the bench with a pile of cut glass and stone, one piece at a time, and the tabs close. On mosaic, patience, and the only quiet my brain gets.
October 2026 · Entry 1
It started on terrazzo at Manchester Airport in 2000, five years at Amatino Tiling next to a lad called Lee, and then the jump — Manchester to America in 2005 with a trade in my hands. The whole road, including the mate who was there at the start of it.
This diary gets a new entry when the life produces one — no schedule, no filler. If you want the trade advice instead, that's on the blog. If you want the man, he picks up his own phone.