Tile Saga

Seriously I am not going to give you the day-by-day tile shopping and selection saga. I'll just say that John and I visited 40 stores in 2 counties over 4 Saturdays dedicated to looking at and touching tile (stone, ceramic, porcelain, terra cotta, glass). Thank goodness we are only talking about one bathroom - 72 square feet.

I started with a classic design - white hex tile floor and subway tile shower/tub enclosure and lavatory back splash. Plus a glass block panel above the tub.

Then a nice basket-weave ceramic tile appeared in This Old House magazine and the design started to morph as I looked for that product.

When, I saw this lovely 5/8" travertine multi-color square tile (above) it became the focal point of the room and knocked out the basket-weave floor.

My budget knocked the sunken Greek tub out of the design and the idea of a continuous floor into the shower was born. This beautiful aggressively textured tile (below) was perfect - except the 12x12 inch tiles won't accommodate the gradual slope to the shower drain.

Finally, here is where we landed:

• Multicolor 5/8 inch travertine tile on one shower wall,
• Ceramic Adex brand 2x4 inch subway tile for the remaining shower walls and backing the lavatory/water-closet in bone (warm white),
• Half-round travertine "pencil-line" tiles to finish the edges,
• Textured porcelain 6x6 inch floor tile and bullnose base tile in sandalwood (nicely variegated).

The little bars of color you see in these pictures are grout samples. I haven't reached a decision on that yet. There is always another question.
Oh, I'm also thinking about mounting the subways in the vertical.