Day Five - Starting to take shape

Lots of progress yesterday. A good 80% of the tile is done. Here's what's been done so far:

Walking into the bathroom, all the floor tiles are down. Base trim is being put in today.
This is where the vanity will go. We tiled all the way to the back. I'd like a more open bottom on the vanity, but even if we don't go with that I prefer the tile to go throughout in case we decide to change something in the future.

The toilet area. This was major bone of contention with hubby yesterday. I had instructed the tile man to cut the large 16X16 tiles in half and use those as base trim. Since I'd measured (read: estimated) that the tile trim that was already on the wall was 8" tall, I figured this would be a perfect fit. Wrong! The original tile trim was almost 11" tall, and now it looks as though the tile work is unfinished. Normally this would get sanded and painted, no big deal. However, we have textured walls. Even if we tried to texture just the bottom, it would be obvious that it was done after the rest of the walls and would look awful. In the end I ran back to the tile store and got 12X12 marble tiles to go over the base trim that's already there. It isn't the exact match of the marble in the tub area; it's the same color but has much less veins. Still, it was $2.99 per tile as opposed to $6.29 for the marble I'd already purchased, and it's similar enough that it can pass.

Here's inside the tub area. Notice large tiles on bottom, small tiles on top above marble trim. I decided to go with all square design because a) it's cheaper than putting them in diamond form, and b) I like symmetry. This keeps the design much more symmetrical.

Here's a close-up of the wall. We had the tile man cut a few pieces of the marble into 4X4 squares to include them randomly within the smaller tiles. Well, not so random. Remember, symmetry. The design on the one wall will mirror the design on the opposite wall, and above the glass block window there will be 3 marble tiles in one row to balance everything out.

I really believe this is going to look spectacular. Hubby wasn't so sure in the beginning, but now that so much of the tile has been put down he's starting to see my vision and he's liking it. Today the balance of the tiles should be laid, then grouting can begin. We're starting to see it all come together! Stay tuned!