Update......3/16/2010. I am gonna use the first tile guy that came out (friend of my plumber). Nice guy, very attentive to my questions, etc. The second tile guy that came out said he guaranteed I will have no porblem tiling on the sleepers over concrete. RED FLag!? He said he would email me a quote......he never did. oh well. When I order the tile yesterday, I told the ladies at the tile shop who my tile contractor was....they spoke very highly of him....calling him a perfectionist....hopefully that bodes well for me and my bathroom. So here are the new specs..... Bathroom floor: Mud Bed [including bonding agent on concrete and wire mesh to strengthen the mud bed] tile se on diagonal Radiant heat floor set in mudbed Thinset Tile Shower: Swanstone Shower pan [34x48] Durock walls Thinset/tape seams Mapei liquid waterproofer (either HPG or AquaDefense) One recessed niche tile to ceiling Look ok? TWO Questions: 1. Any preference for either Mapei waterproofing products? The HPG or AquaDefense? 2. Question on vapor barrier for foundation wall One wall of the bathroom is on the poured foundation wall. Do I need a plastic between the cement wall and the insualtion and studs? thanks. mike

I'd add the color with something that can be changed out later more easily. Tile will be the toughest thing to change out. You could have just as much fun with a pattern on the wall in paint, colorful towels, and accessories. If you're dead set on having color in the tile, then I'd do a mostly neutral with a stripe of colored tile or a few accent tiles.

This is a lot more tough than I thought it would be. So true! With my kitchen remodel, choosing materials wasn't too difficult, but we are on our third serious attempt at trying to remodel our master bath. We haven't been able to coordinate the floor and countertop because of limited choices so we moved on to other projects. Fortunately I've learned a lot from thinking about bathrooms for three years. If you want to limit your materials, you could do a Kohler cast iron shower pan. Gardenwebbers who have them love them. They come 60" x 30" and also 32" and 34". They look nice with tiled walls, and it would give you more options for using a patterned tile on the shower walls because you won't have to coordinate the shower floor tile with the shower wall. You'd just need to work with the travertine floor and the shower wall and a possible accent tile. Here's a web photo of the Kohler Bellweather cast iron pan with 12" square tiles. I didn't find a great representative Houzz photo of the Kohler pans, but I did come across this photo to show you how a touch of a dark color looks very nice on white tile. If your shower walls are white tile, I would do a chocolate brown accent to bring the color of the travertine floor up to the white. This shower has a white Kohler shower pan. You can see it by clicking on the photo and looking at other views of this bathroom. You could still use a brown accent tile on the walls if you tile your shower floor in a brown mosaic. I'm recommending you bring the brown into the shower in whatever way possible--floor, wall tile, or accent.

Thank you everyone!! I should clarify, I wouldn't mind the tile if the white was actually white, it's just more of a worn/cream/off white type color which is throwing me off a little bit. I do like the idea of adding a pop of color - I'm just one of those people that's usually afraid of color! So I first went for white and black and got a little disappointed. Loving the teal/aqua recommendation though:) thanks again everyone!