I wanted to post some after photos and thank everyone who took the time to comment. It turns out that the wall was "indented" when we removed the chair rail so my DH has spent several weekends to build it back up with joint compound and texture it to blend in with the walls. It was a painfully tedious process (first trying to do it by hand, then with a sponge, then with spray-on compound that dribbled everywhere, and finally with a trowel lightly loading dabs of compound on). If you look closely you can still tell, but it's not as glaring as it was several iterations ago. Suffice to say, we are thrilled to be done with sanding, priming, texturing, and painting! Now, I need to figure out what wall decor to put up as the removal of the chair rail makes it a much easier space to deal with! Any and all advice would be appreciated. I was thinking of doing a photo gallery near the front entry, but that is a HUGE wall and I don't know that I can put photos high enough where you can still see them but not so low that the wall looks off-balance. Forgive the quality of the photos, taken without a flash on my iPhone.

The installer came here late and when I told him about the grout width problem (he promised me 1/8th width.. I can live with some tiles off by 1/16 but not off by a range of 1/16 to 1/4) and that some tiles are filled with glue between the tiles are are 1/16th so how can he get the glue in the tiles. I was going to ask him what he would want to be paid to remove the tiles, start at the door to make that even (has various size gaps there) and do much less cuts with no border that I did not want in the first place. But first I told him to not get started until I talked to him about the widths being so off for the grout lines. He would not let me continued and he got up and left with all his tools upset with me and told me to find someone else to finish the job. My client/friend who came by a few minutes before the installer and agreed that the job was not acceptable (and he is not so picky like me) just removed the tiles since we found out the glue was not spread out well with some tiles having hardly any glue and others very lumpy and uneven. Amazingly the tiles all came up so easily with a small screw drive since many were not glued down too good. None of the tiles have damage except one has a chip on it that the installer did and remember there are only 4 whole tiles with many 3 X 12 pieces that may not be able to be used again My client/friend is cleaning the tiles for me and trying to get lumpy glue off of the bottom and then we will figure out how to get the haze off of the top. Any ideas? I wonder if I should buy 1 or 2 more boxes of more tiles in the same lot number (14 tiles to a box) and not open them in case they are needed so I will not have to have a different lot number in case no one has time to do the floors (that have lumpy glue all over them and no hardwood floors or tiles on both foyer areas now) for several weeks. I love the real stone look and color of the bone/beige tiles but now wish they were 13 X 13 instead of slightly more than 12 X 12 since I am seeing that the bigger the tile, the easier the job will be with no small pieces. But the color was perfect in my office and I think I would like to make the tiles work out. Sorry I only had 4 hours of sleep so I hope this makes sense. Doing tile work is a lot harder than I imagined and I feel now it take talent to get very close grout line widths.

Not yet, though it's only been 8 months that we've had the tile. Maybe it's mind over matter: we love our tile! :) We also aren't cruising around barefoot all the time, and I don't do a lot of standing in one spot for extended periods. I've often heard the issues that you mentioned, but I sometimes wonder if part of the problems aren't due to individuals' poor posture, sinks/faucets/cooktops not being properly positioned (i.e., too far forward), etc. My elderly mom complained of her hard floors starting to bother her legs, so I picked up a couple of those foam floor mats -- she finds them very cushy, and they've helped greatly.

Adjoining tile areas should be the same. You wouldn’t put two different woods on the floors.