Sorry, I don't know off hand what the grout is. It is my daughters bathroom and I can see if the contractor left some grout at their house when I go there tomorrow to watch my granddaughter and let you know. I do know that the shower valve and tub spout are not off center in the tile so it is just the angle of the picture. The contractor who was also the tile man was an absolute perfectionist and wouldn't allow anything to be "off". He has since done my son's bathroom and I will be using him in the future for my hall bath remodel. I wish everyone could have a contractor like him.

Everyone is asking for a porcelain slab fabricator close to where they live. What I did was search on Houzz to find local contractors with porcelain slab installations. Then viewing work that they did a few years ago for any cracking particularly around the sink faucets. I did not have good experiences asking the material vendor for contractors for other projects I have done.

Thank you, Allison. I have seen walker Zanger but have not seen Village Lagoon yet. I hope not to have standing water but we are doing a jetted curbless large shower so not sure how much water will puddle. Hopefully none. I also have young kids who may shower in this room who do create lots of puddles in their own bathroom. i am going to ask about sealing them it seems that would counter the absorption issues. off to look into Village Lagoon. Thanks.

OK...we've seen one poster (several years ago) have a horrific experience with her new build in Europe. She had her porcelain tiles laid in a second floor bathroom (European Builders and tile setters are MUCH higher in skill and education that Canadians...so keep that in mind). The building was cement block with some wood-joists. Thick subfloors with excellent deflection rating. And a tile setter who had been sent to Italy to learn how to install the product. Epic fail. As in 2 years later the national tile setters guild (Austria or Switzerland I believe) had to be brought in to sort out the retailer and the installer. Still not settled even though everyone agreed it was not done properly. You will notice the project pictures you are showing are all done over concrete slabs. There's a reason for that. The SUBSTRATE must be EXTREMELY RIGID. That's a start. Then the setting of the materials must be EXACT! The materials used to lay these supersized porcelain tiles are rarely found "off the shelf". This is super specialized product, product knowledge and skill-set. And the education level of the installer must be insanely high. Someone who believes they can use a single tile as a shower floor may not have the education level available. Your average "builder" rarely has the skill set to complete such a specialized installation. They have to know some hyper-expensive guys who have been trained specifically for this job. Ask how often they go to Europe to get training in this material. If they look scared and/or angry then you know you have got the wrong person. And in a shower you WANT lots and lots of grout lines. It adds TRACTION to the wettest surface in your house. A shower tile MUST BE RATED to go into this setting. The slip coefficient must meet safety standards. You need to check off all of these boxes to get this product installed. Assume the worst and go from there.