Terico

Today we picked out tile at Terico. This place is legendary in the Bay Area with folks remodeling their homes. They have the lowest prices around. Now, there are tradeoffs.

The first noticable tradeoff is ambiance. Very minimal. OK, really, none. Lynn Hammerschmidt described it as having a 3rd world atmosphere. Inside, it's really just a big warehouse with crate upon crate of tile. There are handwritten signs posted everywhere with things like "DO NOT TOUCH" and other charming reminders. Outside, it's also packed with tile, and only enough room between the stacks to get a forklift through. Not until we got to the back of the building did it really take on a 3rd world feel. There, the stacks get a little higher and narrower, and there are things like cast off pieces of heavy equipment and tires. It might make a great place to hold a paintball tourney.

The next tradeoff is selection. What's there, is what's there. No special orders. And if you hesitate, or have to come back tomorrow, it could be gone, having been sold to someone ready to act.

The final tradeoff is terms. No charge cards, only cash or check, with a minimum of $250 cash and $350 for a check. And, the price is THE PRICE, no negotiating. In the cross cultural mix of the Bay Area, this can sometime lead to some interesting exchanges when folks coming from cultures accustomed to dickering run up hard against this limit. We're told that such customers wind up in the category of (another handwritten sign) "we retain the right to refuse service to anyone."

Our experience was really pretty pleasant. Lynn had made a scouting run last week so we had some idea of what the selection was likely to be. Pretty quickly we picked out tile for the east wing floor, some 16" multicolor slate. The master bath was pretty easy to locate, some 12" tumbled travertine. And we had to hunt a lot for the well hidden crates with the 4" multicolor slate for the tack room and mosaic 12" copper slate for the kitchen backsplash.

The folks at Terico were really pretty pleasant. We got smiles back whenever we talked to anyone. Maybe it was because business was slow; Rain was on it's way, and my guess is many builders were spending the day getting jobs weathertight before the storm. Spending effort at a job site means fewer of them were tile shopping. But really, we only spent about 2h from our arrival until the first load was going into the truck of our tile sub, Jorge Garcia:

And it only took a few more minutes to fill his truck. Take a look at this second picture as Jorge's truck is leaving Terico. The truck looks level, right? Now, look closely at the tires relative to the body, especially the rears. Notice that the front wheels are on the pavement, and the pavement is lower than the yard at Terico? Yup, there really was that much weight in the bed. And that was only about half the tile purchase - Jorge and his brother Sergio brought two trucks back for the 2nd load.

Now, it's gonna get fun to see colors and textures like this start to appear in our new home...