#1 - do I displace the center of the design to accomodate the 4" bullnose piece or do I leave the design centered on the wall?

Stand back and look at the area. Which looks better? There's your answer! :-)

#2 - how do I end the chair rail and the glass brick tile at the corner since they obviously aren't the same size & color as the bullnose or does that not matter?

Depending on how much thicker the glass is than the tile, I'd probably start a full (glass) tile from the outside corner, if possible. AS for the chair rail, that's an easy one-- Miter the outside end, and cut a mitered "plug" for the end.

Look on the right where the chair rail stops at the shower:

Now, if you have any kind of raised pieces like chair rails, you're going to have to put a piece of stationary glass next to the wall, and then hang the door from there. Otherwise, you're either going to have problems with the swing of the door, or you're going to have to put "blanks" (pieces of wall tile) where the door will swing, which looks like caa- caa. Even then your glass guy will most likely have to notch into the chair rail to install the glass. But atleast that'll have a definite stopping and starting point, that being the front and back of the glass, so it won't look bad at all.

Thanks for your quick response Bill.
Tub surround dilemma solved. I will plan for the glass brick tile to start at the outside wall and have the chair rail mitered (of course, an obvious solution now that you've thought of it for me). I am also going to leave the design centered on the wall.

On to the shower dilemma. Why will two blank walls of tile on the entry to the shower look bad? Can't I just end the chair rail at either side of the entrance inside the shower (using that same miter cut from the bathtub area?) and use only bullnose on the inside doorway? (is that even the right term for the ends of the walls that create the shower where the door is mounted?)

I'm not trying to be quarrelsome, but am really curious and trying to learn so I can put together the best design that I can before I put in my tile order. I've spent quite a few hours reading old posts on this forum and on the John Bridge forum and have seen the great work that you do so I will take your advice over my husbands. ;-)

Hubby would like to keep the glass as simple as possible - just one piece of glass and he wants the entry to be as narrow as possible because he has put body sprays on one of the side walls and a hand spray on the other one. The rain shower head and the storage ledge & bench are on the large walls. The shower will be 3x5x5x3 (give or take two to six inches on each side) with the door angled at the entrance. I don't know if that's too much information or not enough but I'd like to get this figured out so I can put in my tile order by this weekend. Demo starts next week.

Why will two blank walls of tile on the entry to the shower look bad? Can't I just end the chair rail at either side of the entrance inside the shower (using that same miter cut from the bathtub area?) and use only bullnose on the inside doorway?

I think you may have misunderstood what I said. What I was talking about was if you continued the chair rail into the shower. If the chair rail continues all the way around, obviously, there's going to be a problem with the door. If it's hinged to the wall, you're going to have a problem with it running into the nose of the chair rail as you open it, and if it's pinned at top and bottom an inch or two out from the wall, you'll have the same problem , but with the back edge of the door. The only ways to alleviate that problem would be to 1) stop the chair rail short of the swing of the door and put a piece of wall tile in its place which would look ugly as hell, or 2) put a piece of stationary glass against the wall, and THEN hinge the door top and bottom, thereby eliminating the need for the space in the chair rail due to the swing.

You can, as I also did in that picture, just end the chair rail at the outside of the shower, and use bullnose. There's no problem there.

Gotcha. I will go ahead and order bullnose for that area. Thanks for the clarification.

Just curious...How much time do you spend on the layout before you start cutting tiles? Do you do pencil sketches first? That floor is just beautiful! Well, the whole bathroom is stunning but I guess since I'm messing with a diagonal layout for our shower walls I've tuned my eye into noticing those.

I won't do any sketches, but depending on how intricate the layout is, I've been known to spend anywhere from a half hour up to an entire day figuring my layout before I cut the first tile.

I mean, there's layout,

and then there's LAYOUT, where everything gets the same tile, and it all must tie in:

WOW - that steam room is AMAZING! I think it would be very cool to have a job that you can finish and look back with such satisfaction at your artistry and skill.

Can I ask your opinion about the tile layout in my shower? Above the chair rail I have planned on having 12x12 set on a diagonal. The 4x4 glass tiles would be inset at the points which meet at a line about 5 1/2 feet above the floor. I have initially laid out the pattern so each wall is symmetrical with the glass tiles centered but that makes it so the corner pieces don't line up. If I adjust the tiles so the corners line up then that offsets the inset tiles and they are no longer centered. Is there a right way to make this work and look good?

I'm not sure I understand. You're doing one row of square set glass 4x4, correct? Are you saying you want to do insets WITHIN the row of glass. and you want them to be symetrical on each wall?

No. I wish I could draw on here...
Okay, I got a picture that hopefully will show up. This is a pic of the largest wall in the shower. Does this help?

I'm just not sure if it is more important to have the large diagonal tiles cut so they continue around the corner which makes the 4x4 insets (accents?) off-center OR to have the design centered on each wall which makes the corners not match up evenly. Does that clarify my question better?

Sorry, I wish I knew how to communicate through here better.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Any time you're installing diagonal, It's imperative that you "bend", or continue the cuts around all corners. Actually, there's two ways to do it-- either bend the cut, or mirror it. But it must be one of the two. Otherwise it looks bigtime amateur.

One thing you might do to keep the symettry is to start in the center of the back wall, and work out from there. You may not get symetry on each wall, although you WILL get it on the back wall, but atleast the left wall, as you look at the area, will match the right one.

Okay, that's what I thought the answer would be. I will let go of my idea of "symmetry" for better looking tile work. I am glad to hear that I can mirror the cut because that's what I had planned for the walls around the bathtub.

One more question, Bill, with two 5 foot walls in the shower and the door set at an angle which wall do I create the center point from? One wall has the rainshower and the other has the shampoo ledge & bench.

If you mean you've got a neo-angle shower, then you want to start from the corner you're facing as you walk in the door, and work out both ways from there.

It is a neo-angle shower and if I start the diagonals in the corner then I get both the professional looking corner cuts and the symmetry. You are a genius. ;-)

Thanks for your help and your patience with all those questions.

I know. It's a blessing AND a curse. :-)

That and being so modest. :-)