Wooo!!! Cat, I am stuck at home because of the snow storm so wandered around here not looking at anything in particular and came upon your thread. I totally agree with you on the shower curtain choice. Regardless of whether I have the money to spare or not, keeping those suckers clean is a nuisance over time. We have a glass shower door that was installed back in 2003 and I can't tell you how much I hate cleaning it. Not that the door is all that dirty, but a shower curtain is way easier, and you can change the look/style whenever you feel like it. Can't do that with a pricey shower door. Anyway, everything looks lovely as usual, including the "prom" dress :-) Love, love those circular tiles, and the floor tiles that look like fabric. Gorgeous. What colour is that again? It looks greyish on my monitor.

Palimpsest, I wish I used your tile guy. I think he sounds great and did it the way it is suppose to be done. No one answered (maybe because no one knows) can certain sections be redone or does the entire floor have to come out? Most sections are very nice and I love, but the bad sections of raised tile, grout I cannot get off and that area by the floor molding I cannot live with. I did know when I purchased it that some areas of the marble were dark and some light, that's natural and gives it character, I don't mind it, but if it's done in a certain way. This is just horrible though. Our builder has a tile guy and he did a fantastic job in our master bathroom and our full bathroom. I don't know why one of the owners, who is one of the on-site builders, decided to do this for himself. It was the most difficult and time-consuming out of all of the bathrooms. He should've let the guy that specializes in tile do this bathroom. Lesson learned to him as well I am sure. Is it a tough job to take this floor out? It's a 6x6 powder room. You know, if only the mistakes were where the toilet was going to be or in the far corner where you couldn't see it etc. none of this would matter, but of course Murphy's Law, they are right smack in the middle of the floor where you see it as soon as you walk in.

I think it's a mistake to try to find a floor tile with some color (but not a lot) and also have a paint that has some color (but not a lot) to it. I would put color in one location or the other, but not both. One option if you're really determined to add color, is to do light blue glass subway tiles in the shower. It's nearly impossible to match a barely there color exactly, and trying to match it and missing often looks worse than just going with a bold contrasting color. So your choices are to go with black, white, or a marble that is guaranteed to have some swirls of the right color. Or to do the glass tile I mentioned since it's so obviously different.

You need documentation no matter what comes next. You need all your in-progress photos, all texts and emails between you and contractor, the contract, the texts and emails from the tile people, printed out manufacturer’s instructions for the waterproofing materials he used such as wall boards and pan liner, texts and emails from the local rep for the manufacture (if you contacted them), etc, etc. Buy the TCNA handbook and read the shower chapters. Ask for a meeting. In meeting explain what your concerns are and cite all the things that he did wrong, with in-progress photos and cross-referencing all the violations to the standards, codes and instructions. Ask what his plan is for re-building the shower. If he refuses, ask him does that mean he’s quitting the project? If he says yes, that means he has quit, you did not fire him, document/confirm that in an email. If he says no he’s not quitting, then tell him remedying this situation is part of the project, so ask him which day he’s coming over to demo and re-build it. He may quit at that point. If he does try to re-built it, if/after that fix fails, you can fire him. Then send a demand letter certified return receipt asking for full refund plus the cost that you will have to pay to hire a new tile professional to demo and re-build (use local averages or get actual bids). Cite all the violations like you did in the meeting with the references. We had to do all this stuff when our GC quit rather than fix the issues. It’s a PITA but we got double our money back. Read my “Project Goes South” post, you might find some helpful info in there. Now, if you don’t have any of the documentation I listed above, don’t have a contract, etc, etc, I don’t know what leverage you have. You can still have the meeting and send the demand letter, but if it goes to court documentation is your friend and you want max documentation. Hopefully you can dig up some photos of the waterproofing process involving both the floor and the walls. If you don’t have much, add this to your meeting: ask the contractor to simply explain each step (like he’s teaching you) he used to build your shower, starting with framing. Then write down every word he says, asking him to slow down or repeat if needed. Don’t correct or challenge anything he says; let him explain his process. That can substitute a little bit for your lack of other documentation. Then you can cross reference any wrong info he told you to the codes, standards and manufacturer’s instructions, and proceed from there with demand letter. If he refuses your demand letter, which he will, you can decide about suing him. In my state justice court (small claims) is non-binding. We didn’t sue our GC, but he sued us saying we fired wrongfully him. We responded with counter-suit in District Court and asked that the lower case get rolled up to that level because of the $ amount and we wanted a binding decision. It’s a pain and I hope we never have to talk to a judge again, but we had to respond to quit-GCs suit and go through the process. Best of luck to you.