I've actually seen your miter idea. If you executed well, it would look very cool. (The vignette in a showroom that I saw that had it nailed it on one side - very awesome - and missed badly with hideous lippage on the other side.)

The geometry of this will matter a little bit. Is the liner piece symmetrical? This will make a difference how well this might work. Picture?

The only problem with the miter idea is that the two sides of the miter need to be exactly the same in both angle and length, and because of the fact that on one piece you'd be angling the whole end, while on the other you'd only be mitering half of it for each side, the miters won't quite match up. That said, I also still think the miters would probably be the best of the evils.

Is that because you can't have it set tight, like you would with wood mouldings? That you have to leave space for the grout or caulk or whichever is right, so you have to back off of the seam, which makes it wonky?

I forgot about the need for grout...hmmm, this is why amateurs shouldn't play with the big boys.

OK baseball practice is finally over. I told some one else I'd take a pic of something else...I'll take one of the 2 pencils which might help.

I realize there probably isn't a perfect solution. Just looking for the best of what I've got. The Porcelanosa bullnose was pretty steep, and it kinda looked cheap.

As far as mitering...I was thinking I would plan a grout joint at each intersection so I'd have to make a 1/2 cut on each end of a vertical (putting them together then makes a "V") to receive the pointy horizontal piece.

Actually, there IS a perfect solution. Assuming it's a T:

The vertical piece gets both corners cut to form a point, with the point being at the thickest part of the pencil. The two horizontal pieces at the top of the T each get one corner cut, with the cut edge at the thickest part of the pencil. At the joint, the two horizontal pieces are joined with a straight seam halfway through. Then the point of the 'arrow' piece joins to fill the gap.

We did 'sideways Ts' with a similar molding piece to frame in our accent tile in our shower:

Will this work with your profile? Let's say your pencil is 1" wide okay?

For the piece that butts into the other, cut the end that does the butting at a 45 degree angle from both sides so it ends up as a "point". That end will be 1" wide, but the point, being 45'd from both sides, will only be 1/2" long.

For the piece that gets butted into, cut a 45 degree notch into the side of it that is 1" wide but only 1/2" deep, and it'll have a 45 degree angle on both sides.

They should fit nicely together, and there should be no lippage issues with the vertical part of the profile.

Not the perfect way to describe it, hopefully this "X" and "-" thingy will render well:

xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx--------
xxxxxx---------
xxxxx----------
xxxx-----------
xxxxx----------
xxxxxx---------
xxxxxxx--------
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx

I guess I took too long making my pretty "X" and "-" drawing! Nice look Sweeby! That's exactly what I was trying to describe.

Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 X's... ;-p

Holy smack, Sweeby! Now THAT is a nice tile job! Where are you located? Who did that for you?

Seriously, that is the nicest detail work I've seen in a long time. It's perfect. Whoever did that, I'm in love.

spanky: By the way, Sweeby's picture is what I meant by "symmetrical." Maybe others know how to make it work, but Sweeby's liner is what I had in mind when I said that it had to be symmetrical for what you had in mind (miter) to work.

Very nice, sweeby. VERY nice.

Sweeby's example is perfect. The indented v-notch not cut all the way through would create a stress riser- (point of weakness) which could crack sooner or later.
Casey

Thanks! My husband is a professional remodeler, and he did the work. I'll pass along the compliments 'cause he does deserve them. ;-)

Wow, who knew such a simple question would get so much action.?

Sweeby, pass along my congrats to your husband. That's exactly what I was thinking, just trying to find out if it was do-able. Obviously it is.

My biggest barrier to that is I only have 1 or 2 extra pieces of pencil. On second viewing, is that marble or porcelain? It looks like porcelain and I'm just wondering if marble will cut that nicely.

Boy it's hard to type after a 3 martini dinner and an entire day of opening day little league!!