Hi Beth, I just found your post relating to the Sonoma Tilemakers. I had crackle tile recently installed in my shower and have noticed black spots appearing on the tile (under the glaze). Did you resolve your tile issue with the company? Please let me know.

The skirting is inside the shower, but the difference in the depth of the tile at the upper edge of the skirting and the large tile is not much. Yes, the cornice piece has a slight edge, but no more than the Sonoma tile. Here is the profile of the Sonoma tile. I completely understand the concern of the protruding edges or ledges, but I'm not sure how you'd get the look without that detail. I don't mind using a squeegee or wiping down the shower after use. As has been discussed in other threads about the microfiber towels, wiping down the shower keeps it looking like new and requires very little 'cleaning'. We currently have 4" square white tile in the shower with white grout and after 25 years, it still looks very good. With the larger tile on the bottom 2/3 of the shower, we'll have a lot fewer grout lines.

I like the look of a simple backsplash using the countertop material rather than using a mosaic there. We used a 6" tall splash instead of 4". We just finished our master bath last fall and we used the Emser Lucente Lazzaro for one shower wall and the niches. Lazzaro has a lot of light greenish-gray-marble colors in it. Lucente comes in a lot of colors. My local showroom only had 2 colors on display, but the Emser website shows a lot more options. If you use Lucente I have one suggestion regarding installation. I don't know if this will occur with a different color, but with the Lazzaro color, there were some marble pieces that had black dots in them. That was fine as long as these dots occurred randomly, but it just so happened that some of them lined up in one area when being installed. The installer was so close to it that he didn't realize. His helper was standing further back and noticed. While things were still wet, he cut out the offending pieces with a utility knife and replaced them with a piece from another sheet. Just an installation detail I thought I'd mention. Our colors were: Emser Uptown Sugar Hill for field tile in 12 x 24" (it's a light gray/concrete color with some variation), Lucente Lazzaro linear mosaic for one wall and niches, QDI The Rock 3" x 3" floor tile (charcoal gray), marble countertop and tub surround with marble splashes, white vanity cabinet and tub skirt panels, a large linen cabinet stained in a medium brown tone and some floating shelves also stained, and existing wood floors. We thought a white and gray color plan might be too cold so we incorporated the greenish-gray mosaic and the stained cabinet, plus a teak bench in shower to bring in some warm elements.

I l o v e zellige. Since I've seen them first, before they really started to appear a lot more. But very true, they have very handmade, imperfect nature, that everything else should play well with. For this, one needs to know more about the house. I have terracotta tiles in other places in the house, but in the kitchen- I have Quartz countertops too, and as much I love terracotta-next to my countertop it just seemed to be too good, too real a deal so to say. I must add that everybody processes things a bit differently, and I might go a bit crazy figuring out what likes what, and what loves what, and what talks to what..elusive guests(c)) And it will depend n a house. I might think same about marble next to Quartz. It can look great-but I'll think "no, they vaguely dislike each other".) Always good idea to ask for samples and look at them in the space, which I'm sure Eld is aware of. With zellige, I'd ask for as many as they'll be kind to give me..some stores are very generous. I proudly had my first backsplash installed in my twenties(first apartment) , so I'm okay without backsplash too. Can be fabuluos look, I just really love tiles. (If my posts were contending for "The most useless April's posts"-I'd make this one a contender))