You are NEVER going to be able to exactly match whites. I have AO gloss white subway tile, toto cotton (I think) toilet, a clawfoot tub (no name brand) with a different shade of white, two different undermount sinks, plus daltile white floors, white painted trim, white restoration hardware vanity and mirrors. It all looks fine together. Yes, if you are looking you can tell it's not a 100% match but overall it harmonizes. BTW, the trim paint I had colormatched to the tile and it turned out similar but not identical but I think it looks better that way :)

I'm not done yet - gutted 11/2007. :-p But here are some pictures - tub plus wall plus floor tile plus trim color, all different whites:

I was going to say the same thing. White is the toughest "color" to work with, because there are so many hues and shades. It's literally impossible to match them up. I don't know if they still do, but AO used to have a line called Kohler Colors, to match the Kohler products. But they had alot of problems with the white, for exactly the reason you're seeing right now. This is why I'm not sure if they still carry them or not.

Wow! Your bathroom is beautiful.

I, too, shall embrace and love my various shades of white.

KGWLisa...can you tell me what color and brand of grout you used? We're considering a silver/light grey to go with the brushed nickle fixtures.

If you go out and try to find the whitest tile possible (which is adex, I have it in my kitchen because the tile I bought looked very PINK and I could not live with it) it might end up making your kohler stuff look dingy. Whites are just really tough - nothing is pure white really, they all have different undertones - from yellow to blue to pink. I just tried to keep them all "warm" and that's why it works (nothing in there has seriously blue undertones). I thought about it but we have nearly 300sf of subway tile in the bathroom. 300sf x $2/sf for the stuff at lowes is a lot less than 300sf x $7/sf for the adex I have in my kitchen (I used a fraction of that amount for my backsplash).

Thanks for the compliment, I am making the final push to get it done and coming here for motivation hehe.

caroline, we used mapei warm gray. I felt it was just dark enough to emphasize the pattern but not so dark that it made my rather large bathroom too visually busy with all of the lines being very prominent.

Thanks, KGWLisa, I'll have to check my notes. I think "Warm Grey" was on the list, and now it is the list!

Here's Ms. L. working away. She is the happiest person to know. The contractor installed Dens-Guard tile backer. They grey boards are what the contractor installed. We had to fix the pumbing, yet again, and bought the replacement blue Dens-Guard at Lowes.

I had doubts about it, but then other issues piled up and so we stuck with it. We'll keep folks posted about how it works. The rest of the walls and ceiling are the G/P paperless wall board and the kitchen, eventually, will have the tried-and-true DuRock.

I can so relate. All my trim, baseboards, windows, ceiling, etc. is painted BM Super White. So what do the (different guys) painters use to spray lacquer the new vanity and towers? SIMPLY white.

I wanted to kill them when I saw the can. I wished I hadn't seen the can. I would've chalked it up to semi-gloss vs. lacquer or whatever. And spraying the sides of the towers was a big ordeal because it was so hard to get a clean line where the white tower touches the blue-grey wall. Grrrrrrrrrr.

I couldn't bear to have them start over.

I figured it's a different component of the room, and the colors are close enough. (Super is, well, super white. Simply is a bit more ivory, but still very white when not sitting right next to Super.)

And now? I'm totally over it. And the other (non idiot painter) workers are doing some other stuff for free to make up for the snafu.

Is she buttering each individual piece of subway tile?????

Hi Bill. Yes, she is buttering each tile. Should she be smearing it on the wall instead? She is being very carefull and thoroughly covering each tile. She's being paid by the job, not the hour.

Let me know if she should be doing it differently. I "introduced" her to your articles and the bath forum, too!

No, she's doing fine. The only reason I asked is because it's GOT to be so incredibly time consuming, rather than spreading the wall!!

I think it looks fine. Whites will differ slightly and that's okay.

Oh, so now I know why my tile guy charged me an arm and freakin leg for my bathroom...he was an "individual butterer," too!

It used to drive me crazy to see white with beige, whites not with the same white, etc. Now I think the mix of shades are maybe even better. After all, you are never gonna get it exactly right. And remember this, you are looking at it one stage at a time and focusing on each element. When it's done and you have towels, rugs, art and who knows what else (I used to be a fan of pink toilet paper), it will not jump at you like it may be doing now...btw, in the pic, it looks great to me.