If I correctly recall your saga, you had a supposedly well built mud bed with supposedly well installed marble tile over it. Then you brought in a friend to seal it. After sealing is when you had the issues. If I recall, when the drain was later pulled, there was evidence that the sealer had percolated down into the mud bed. In a properly working shower, tiling over existing tile can be done. My understanding is your shower is broken. My understanding is that what forensic work has been done to your shower has not resulted in a cause of failure. It has only resulted in people pointing fingers at the other guy. The sealer guy points at the tiler. The tile guy points at the sealer guy. The GC shrugs his shoulder and points at you because you brought in the sealer guy on your own. You point at the GC and ask when will my shower be fixed? If no one can define the problem, how can they come up with a solution? They can't, so they all wink at each other and say "let's cover it up!" The only way to properly install new tile over bad tile that is on a bad mud bed is to completely isolate the new work from the old. There are three important points of contact: That means a NEW membrane has to be installed on top of your old work to prevent water from percolating down into the old work. That means that around the floor perimeter, the new membrane has to be tied into the wall's drainage plane or the wall's membrane that was installed behind the current wall tile. That means that the new drain has to be properly detailed into the old. So, what can you do? You can simply do what has been recommended. Simply cover over what you have. Bury it. Fingers crossed. Hope for the best. It's the easiest. You might have no further bad symptoms. Or the pan might start showing problems, 6, 12, or 24 months down the road. Or you can cover it up keeping the three points of contact in mind. Do understand that this route would require a conscientious and competent mechanic. Or go with the choice that over the long run will likely involve the least amount of labor, be the least expensive solution, and have the greatest chance of success: Have a competent mechanic remove the failed bed and install new. I wrote too much. (sigh) Good luck!

Seconding brickton and steff on the Daltile Asian Black tile. We laid about 150 sf of it in a hopscotch pattern with 6" and 12" tiles in our mudroom/laundry room. The tile is a pretty charcoal grey with just a hint of blue, which we chose to use as our wall color. The tile is very strong and definitely moppable. We used TEC grout in Platinum, although if I could do it over again I would go a shade or two darker. We don't have staining issues because we used a product called Grout Once instead of water in the grout mixture, but I've had to scrub spilled coffee and doggie fluids from the grout joints already. We used 1/4" grout joints to work with the hopscotch pattern, but the tile sizing seemed very uniform so I bet you could easily go smaller. Here's our tile right after we finished grouting...I still hadn't buffed all the haze off. That's pretty true to color if you look past the haze, though.

hello Jillianfl. Top photo is the one I used to remodle my last bathroom. I loved it and got lots of compliments on it. I'm now renovating a new home, and I have the same concerns about the shower flooring. Did you end up getting some advice? What did you end up going with? Thanks in advance!

Penny tiles? Or is that too simple?