What Bill and Matt Ransom Want Homeowners (and DIYers) to Know
When I sat down with Bill and Matt Ransom to talk tile, it felt less like a formal interview and more like dropping into their real life in progress.
Phones buzzed, schedules were juggled, and Matt’s young daughter popped in more than once with the kind of persistent curiosity kids only have when the grownups are trying to focus. It was chaotic in a very familiar way—exactly what you’d expect from a family business that’s been woven into everyday life for decades.
Because Ransom Ceramic Tile isn’t just a logo on a truck. It’s a trade Bill started in the late 1970s, a livelihood Matt grew up watching from the backseat and the job site, and a partnership that now has father and son working side by side on everything from small backsplashes to major public art.
You can feel that history right away.
“I started in ’78 and just did the best I could.”
Bill Ransom didn’t set out to build a legacy brand. In the mid-1970s, he was working with his brother on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., learning the trade as a helper. When he moved to Ann Arbor in 1977, he decided to go out on his own and started Ransom Ceramic Tile in 1978.
“At first,” he told me, “my job list was maybe five or six projects.” But word spread. The big turning point was a high-end condo project in Ann Arbor—Heritage Ridge—with multiple bathrooms and tile-heavy entries in each unit. Bill did the whole complex by himself. That kind of quiet, steady competence turns into a reputation pretty fast.
Matt remembers that era as a kid: occasional Saturdays on the job site, getting dropped at daycare before Bill hauled thinset and tile up the stairs. That was his childhood normal.
Today, father and son work shoulder to shoulder. On any given project, you’ll find Bill calmly problem-solving the tricky stuff while Matt handles layout, detail work, and the kind of precision that makes art tile sit perfectly flush and true.
And for Matt, the work isn’t just about beautiful surfaces or even great clients—though there have been plenty of both. “So much of what I’ve grown to love about my trade is the interaction with other people, primarily with my father,” he told me. The bond they’ve formed working side by side over the years has been, in his words, life changing.
Early on, when Matt was dating his wife, he’d tuck his old Toyota work truck out of sight and walk to her house, worried that a hands-on trade wouldn’t measure up in a family of graduate degrees. “Now, I make as much money as I want. It’s no longer a source of shame, but a source of pride in my craft.”
Meeting Motawi at the very beginning
Ransom’s Motawi story starts almost as early as our own.
Back in 1993, Bill was working on a bathroom near Nawal Motawi’s old house off Miller. The homeowner, Natalie Kellogg, had some little 3x3 animal tiles—Motawi tiles—and wanted them placed all the way around the room. Bill asked where they came from, got sent our way, and walked into the cramped Motawi shop on Staebler Road to introduce himself as a tile setter who loved handmade work.
Before Ann Arbor, Bill had done a lot of handmade Mexican tile back east—Saltillo and Talavera—so Motawi was a natural fit for him. He let Nawal know: “If you’re looking for a local installer for your tile, I’m here.” Work trickled in at first, then took off as Motawi grew.
These days, when Matt looks at his project list, he figures they’ve averaged roughly one Motawi installation a month since those early days—more than 150 Motawi projects in all, from fireplaces to kitchen backsplashes to big public commissions.
Public tile in the wild: kids, fish, and an awful lot of glass
Ask Matt about his favorite jobs, and he goes straight to the public work.
There’s the series of kid-made murals at a Dexter elementary school, where students formed tiles inspired by “the four ancient wonders of the world”: India, Egypt, Indonesia and beyond. Motawi provided the clay; the kids made the tiles; the pieces were brought back for glazing and firing. Ransom taped every single relief tile to protect those wild, creative edges before grouting and installing them in the school.
“That’s a really cool project,” Matt said. “Those public pieces stand out to me as favorites—the elementary school, U of M hospital, the Y, the State Theater.”
And then there are the University of Michigan hospital murals.
If you’ve ever found yourself riding the elevator towers at C.S. Mott or the main hospital and noticed a wall of Motawi tile—schools of fish, watery blues and greens, glowing glazes—there’s a good chance the Ransoms set it. They’ve installed multiple large murals across several floors, each one roughly 10 feet long by 8 feet tall, surrounded by Oceanside glass tile.
The work took years, as funding came in a few murals at a time. Each installation meant a week of tented-off work areas, sticky pads on shoes, and hand-snipping glass—while just outside the plastic, life-and-death conversations were happening between doctors, patients, and families. It’s hard not to feel the weight of that context when you’re installing art in a hospital corridor.
Matt told me about a woman who had photographed all of the murals and kept them on her phone—her personal visual tour through a difficult stretch of life. That’s the kind of thing tile can quietly hold.
Turks & Caicos, 19 pallets of tile, and the glamorous part (for once)
Most tile work is dusty boots and heavy boxes, not tropical postcards. But every once in a while, the universe throws a tile setter a bone.
For Bill and Matt, that bone was Turks & Caicos.
Bill had done several projects over the years for a local garbage-company owner (the legendary “Mr. Rubbish”), including a Motawi fireplace and radiant-heated porch in Ann Arbor. After selling his company, that client bought a house in Turks & Caicos and asked Bill if he’d be willing to do the tile there too.
Nineteen pallets of tile and materials left Michigan on a truck, headed to Miami, and then onto a boat to the island. Bill stayed six weeks; Matt came down for a couple; other family members cycled through. The house had massive German-engineered windows cantilevered over the ocean, and the tile running into those frames had to be perfectly level and true—no margin for error.
“It’s probably why he brought us in,” Matt said. “I don’t know if the local skilled labor would’ve had the experience at the time.”
Everything—flights, housing, food, even the car—was covered. Their client would fly in, work alongside them on block and concrete, then fly home and toss them the keys.
It was glamorous. For a minute.
But when you ask Matt what really stays with him, it isn’t the beach. It’s the moment when a client walks into a finished space and you can see the look on their faces.
“People really light up when they see their vision come to fruition,” he said. “Most trades don’t get that same reaction. With tile, it’s permanent, it’s artistic, and it’s the end of the project—after months of dust. That’s incredibly fulfilling.”
What homeowners don’t see (but absolutely feel)
From the outside, a good tile job looks effortless: straight lines, glowing color, everything lined up “like it was always there.”
Behind the scenes, it’s a different story.
Matt talked about the invisible hours just figuring out a job: measuring from drawings, pricing tiny pencil liners, checking whether a bathroom is a $10,000 project or a $100,000 project depending on details like in-floor heat, shampoo niches with uplighting, or steam showers with sloped ceilings. That’s all before a single tile gets set.
He’s also juggling the calendar. Ransom is typically booked out two to three months. Matt described a recent call from a builder in a panic: the homeowners were about to move in, the inspector wanted a certificate of occupancy, and everyone had assumed Matt could “just pop in” for a quick backsplash.
He had to explain gently: you can move in, you can close, and he’ll protect your counters and floors—but he’s still weeks out, because that’s how far ahead his schedule fills. Tile might be just a day and a half of work on site, but the planning starts months earlier.
And then there’s the literal weight of the job. As Bill put it, people see the finished product and think it’s glamorous, but they don’t have any concept of the heavy material. Tile setters move thousands of pounds of tile, mud, and backer board—often up stairs, out of trucks, and into tight spaces. “Sometimes I wish I was an electrician,” Bill laughed. “Not many trades move as much weight as we do.”
“Can I do this myself?” Their advice for DIYers
At Motawi, we hear some version of this question all the time: “I love this tile. Can I install it myself?” So I asked Bill and Matt directly what they tell confident DIYers.
Matt’s first instinct is surprisingly encouraging:
Absolutely—go for it, especially if you’re already dabbling in DIY. If you’re interested enough to ask the question, you’re halfway there. We’re also living in a golden age of how-to content. There are videos for every step of the process: prep, cutting, setting, grouting. Years ago, Matt would loan out tools and walk people through projects; now the internet can handle a lot of that first layer of education.
That said, they both draw some clear lines:
- Backsplashes are great DIY territory. Flat walls, no waterproofing, manageable scale. With patience and good prep, a homeowner can absolutely pull this off.
- Showers are another story. Once you’re dealing with water, steam, and long-term performance, things get serious. Waterproofing mistakes don’t just look bad; they fail. That’s where they nudge people toward hiring a pro.
Matt’s biggest practical tip for DIYers? Respect the grout.
Grouting can “get away from you,” he says. It’s messy, it sets up fast, and it’s tempting to mix a giant bucket and try to do everything at once. His advice is to mix a small amount, work a small area, and give yourself enough time to clean as you go.
And don’t stress about being a “pro” right away. Compared to plumbing or electrical—where you can flood a house or electrocute yourself—tile is much more forgiving, especially on a small wall project. Start where the stakes are lower, learn as you go, and know when to call in help.
From the pros’ point of view, the best DIY project is one where a homeowner is realistic, curious, and willing to take their time.
Why Ransom is such a good Motawi partner
Listening to Bill and Matt, a few themes pop out:
- They’ve been working with Motawi almost since our beginning—Bill’s first Motawi install was in 1993, just a year after Nawal officially founded the Tileworks.
- They understand handmade tile deeply, from Mexican Saltillo to our relief glazes and hand-piped murals.
- They care about people as much as they care about layout: relationships with long-term clients, builders, and designers matter just as much as square corners and level lines.
When you put all that together—experience, patience, family continuity, plus more than 150 Motawi installations under their belts—you get exactly the kind of partner we love sending our customers to.
Not long after our conversation, Matt emailed to say how much he’s come to value “our friendship through the business” and shared a photo of him and his daughter—working the mud, ready for whatever comes next. Looking at that picture, it’s easy to imagine a third generation of Ransom tile someday, hauling boxes and learning the craft the same way Matt did: one Saturday job at a time.
For fellow tile pros and designers
If you’re a tile installer, designer, or builder and you found yourself nodding along with Bill and Matt’s story, we’d love to get to know you, too. Motawi has a Trade Program with resources, pricing, and support tailored to the people who bring our tile to life in the field.
You can take a closer look at the Trade Program on the Projects section of our site.
