Hand Picking Marble Tiles

Whose responsibility is it to ensure the tiles being used do not have a 'dark spot' or other areas that would make it stand out from the surrounding tiles? I know marble is a natural material with variations, but some had 1 inch diameter black spots in a couple of places (save them for the closets) or the overall color seemed a little darker than the majority of the others. They were supposedly all from the same crate too. So my installer told me he does not 'look' at each tile, and if I wanted to, I could sort them myself. So I did! Is this the usual practice? I think it is not! Thanks.

Carol, a trained and experienced installer is going to go through the crate pull out the tiles, clean and sort them. In smaller rooms I will actually do a dry run in the room to see what the "look" is like. I usually like to have the homeowner see the my intentions before I install them. This is why having having natural stone installed is so expensive, you are paying to have a top notch install.

Thanks Kelly. I am also the one who posted 'Marble over cement' and I getting the big picture that my tile guy did not do his job.

Kelly is right. Sometimes you can put the different shaded tile in closets, under the fridge etc. Or use them as cuts.

The CUSTOMER should not do anything but have the door open in the morning.

I agree with the others above and tend to be real selcrive in what I install and where I install it, but the truth is an installer doesn't quote a job thinking he is going to be required to cull tiles for selective placement. The grading and selecting of tiles comes from the manufacturer when they are packaged. High quality marble tiles are always graded for overall uniformity. Odd occurances in natural stone is to be expected.