Thanks for the quick response, Bill! I really trust my contractor because he's done a really excellent job with everything. So... I would guess its an acceptable drop, just not something I'm used to having. I certainly don't want to start grinding my stone down!! Thanks again for the quick answer. I'll talk to him again tomorrow and we'll decide if the level is O.K. He's always willing to go the extra mile to make me happy!

Guest bathroom shower surround, glossy white tiles, "regular" TEC grout, 2008 I think. MB and hall bathroom tub surrounds, glossy white tiles, TEC XT grout, 2011. No issues. The XT grout doesn't require sealing, but can be, using a solvent based sealer. We have moderately hard water. We wipe down the tub surrounds with a microfiber cloth after showering (to prevent water spots on the glossy tile). I clean the bathrooms pretty much weekly. I spray the tub surrounds with 7th Generation disinfecting bathroom cleaner spray. Let sit a few minutes, and wipe dry with a microfiber cloth. Tile and grout look as they did when first installed.

Exactly! btw. I sound like a total rube I know, but no one ever told me I have to squeegee my glass to keep it from etching. Get the girls a squeegee and have them go to town after every shower. It will keep the grout cleaner as well as save you from having to see permanent spots on the glass door.

Gotta love the consumer keyboardists who have never held a trowel in their life. LOL! Spacers won’t work as intended when the floor isn’t perfectly flat. Especially with hex. It has 6 sides, not 4. Most people couldn’t get it to space out correctly on their kitchen table, much less a floor. Tile has to follow the contours, and that means narrow in some spots and wider in other. Normal old floors aren’t perfectly flat. And many times can not be made that way within the constraints of an apartment environment. Not unless the downstairs neighbor will let you in to completely destroy their ceiling and mess up their place too. The goal is to do the best that the site conditions—and budget—allow. 4K of prep work would probably get that pretty flat. And create a height difference at a threshold to another room. That’s the difference between the real world of budget installs and all of the things photographed on Houzz. People think that these photos are “normal”. It isn’t normal. It’s well above average, super high end work, with a super high end budget. Money produced all of these inspiration images. You want that level? Hire the most expensive person that you can find. Then find out who trained him and hire them. There’s been plenty of well done jobs where the grout color was off. Sometimes there’s just a bad batch. Sometimes it is over washed. It isn’t automatically anyone’s “fault”. It’s unproductive to take such an adversarial outlook as well. Focus on a solution. That would be a grout colorant. The installer should be willing to apply it if the customer buys it. Then live your life and be happy!