North Prairie Tileworks

I had my kitchen painted three colors (horizontally) and thought that handmade tiles would look nice separating the colors, so I went to North Prairie Tileworks in late January, picked up some tiles to take home for review, and talked with Roger, the owner, about possibilities. Discussions went on for several months about what could be done, what colors would work together, what colors were not available for certain kinds of tiles, what designs to use, etc. I had measured all the walls carefully, and they did do an excellent job making specific sizes and shapes, and making some with bullnose, and special ones for the corners, etc. to fit in specific areas. After quite a few trips down there, and lots of discussion, we finally received our order on June 4th. We needed more of a couple of pieces, which were to be made by the next week. When I went to pick them up they were not available. Roger did mail them out that week. The bigger tiles were difficult to shape so they would be flush with the wall, but I understood that they had made double the number I needed and chosen the best for us. Handmade tiles are quite expensive but they do look nice. Roger is a very nice man, but I got the sense after a while that my order was very low priority on his list. It took way too long to make these small number of tiles, with problems like the kiln breaking down not helping things any.

We wrapped up all other aspects of our kitchen remodelling project in July 2010 and ordered our tiles on July 20. Our first impression was that North Prairie was a really solid local company, and we liked Roger. They offered a nice handmade product, which is locally made. We really like the finished product once it was installed in our kitchen. However, we had some problems with delivery. They initially promised that it would take eight weeks just to make the tiles, which seemed like a long time. They were supposed to be ready by September 20. When I called them to ask about delivery, I was first told they would be ready by the end of September. When that date arrived, again the tiles weren't ready. Then they said it would be the end of October.This was 14 weeks after the order was placed and 6 weeks after the original due date. I don?t completely understand the reasons for the delay. I think it had to do with their production schedule. However, it seems to me like someone should have communicated with us earlier about the delay and offered us some compensation for not living up to their original agreement.

The layout pattern for my project was ultimately created by a friend of mine who is an architect. He used a CAD program to create the pattern. I then brought it into the shop and worked with one of the artists there, Charlie. He was fabulous and very professional. Every tile turned out perfect (not too perfect though as you want subtle imperfections with ceramic tile) and we didn't have to cut even one tile during the application of the tiles to the surround. Charlie gave me an estimate (totally shooting from the hip) of $500-$800. That was a very fair estimate. I was extremely satisfied and you can see from the photos just how great it turned out.