Andrea Ames Tile And Stone

Andrea Ames Tile and Stone is a one-woman tile shop in Haverhill. Andrea Ames describes herself as a tile setter with a background in tile manufacturing and a 1986 creative arts degree, offering design, installation, repair and restoration, including grout cleaning, recolouring, sealing and gloss work; her Thumbtack profile carries a background check in her own name, and her stated years in the trade range from over 20 to 34 depending on the page. No licence number is claimed on any profile. Most of what customers hired her for between 2017 and 2020 was restoration rather than new installation: hand-cleaning and regrouting showers, matching grout colour, recaulking tubs, sealing and polishing. The satisfied accounts are specific. A 2018 reviewer said a twenty-year-old bathroom with cracked, stained grout and silicone came back looking new; another that year had cracked grout in two showers replaced with a perfect colour match over three visits; a 2018 loft owner in a converted Amesbury mill had bathroom tile cleaned down to its factory finish and learned how to care for black granite; a 2019 customer had a historic tile restoration done; and a 2019 half-bath and laundry floor was tiled after she and her assistant Bob made an extra trip or two to prepare the surface properly. Several reviewers mention that she teaches as she works, showing them the tools and steps. Quoted prices run from about $100 for a small visit to $1,000 to $1,700 for full shower restorations. The reservations are about pace and cost. Reviewers in 2017 and 2018 said jobs took longer than expected, that three visits and over $300 for a small job felt expensive, that an extra hour had to be paid for, and that her care over grout choice made a job time-consuming. Two accounts are more serious: a 2017 customer said tile outside the shower was broken during aggressive regrouting, responsibility was declined, and another firm was paid $100 to fix it; another that year had only eight tub tiles removed before a reschedule and hired someone else. A 2019 reviewer said the caulking had to be redone a year later, and one 2017 two-star review called the work very slow. Angi and HomeAdvisor share one profile at 4.5 stars from 210 ratings, with 72 percent five-star, and Thumbtack shows 4.9 from 12. For a homeowner who wants old tile and grout restored by hand rather than ripped out, and who cares about colour matching, she is a specialist; for a fast turnaround or a large new installation, ask about the number of visits and total cost up front, and confirm how any incidental damage is handled.