With hardwood, boards are all different lengths, so it's easy to get a random pattern. With tile, every tile is exactly the same length, so you're never going to achieve anything near the randomness of wood. You can start each row off with a randomly different length tile, but whatever the pattern is of seams nearest the wall where you start will be exactly replicated every 3 feet, or however long your tiles are. I wouldn't have picked that pattern. I thought brick pattern was the standard way to do it. But I just did a quick houzz search on "wood look tile" and there are lots of ways to do it. In retrospect, the tiler should have consulted with you on what pattern you wanted. And you should have specified your expectation. But you know that now. :-/

I think it's a great idea and I'd love to do it one day. We used to have a British tv show here that followed two sets of travellers as they exchanged homes and almost everyones experiences were positive. Everyone treated the homes with respect and left them exactly as they found them. The homes were used as a base for day trips while they really explored the local surroundings. It was primarily somewhere to rest up/sleep before heading out to explore some more. They were all 'like minded' people ... people who enjoyed travelling but didn't like staying in hotels. Many really enjoyed shopping and being able to cook for themselves with locally produced food from the markets etc. And lets face it if you're not having to pay for accommodation (which takes up a huge amount of your vacation budget) then you can spend so much more time and $$ on the really fun stuff!

Oddity, at first I was a bit confused with your plan, and now I'm seeing that it is another way to create a convenient space. We have two homes which are primary residences. MINE is in Alabama, and HIS is in Massachusetts. He won't give up his MA citizenship, I won't give up my AL gal status. But that is not a problem. Well, down here, I just created from 3 closets a 3/4 bath. It does not connect to the old bathroom, which had its tub ripped out, and is now waiting for a bumpout about the size of a bay window, in which we will install a clawfoot slipper tub with British phone faucets. Beadboard, etc. And then there is the house in MA. We created a master bedroom with a walkin closet, and the 3/4 bath will be en suite as well. There is a tiny hallway which is the pivotal space from the living room to access the original full bath (tub w/shower) just opposite the basement door. There is a door from the living room to this tiny hall, allowing someone to turn LEFT and go into the bathroom, or turn RIGHT and go into the basement. So we can have access to this bathroom from our bedroom and new bath, without going through the living room and coming around that way, I'm thinking about creating another doorway from that hall (a door on every side then). If we had guests for the upstairs bedrooms, there is a bath up there. If we had visitors NOT spending the night, they could come through the livingroom door and access the "guest" bath, with tub NOT removed. And, we could close the door to our bedroom from the hall and maintain our privacy. We could also, if there are guests upstairs, LOCK the door from the living room, and keep both the "guest" bath and the ensuite bath as our own. Having two toilets with easy access is a big plus, as well as having a large separate shower, and a tub with shower for our daily use. I do not see a problem with blocking off the basement door access to any guests, unless they would like to do their laundry. But only during the daytime when we'd not be wanting to keep our area private as much. So yes, if you can maintain your privacy and not have someone traipsing into your private bath, it could work. Nobody would have access to our ensuite 3/4 bath. If I were you, I'd find a way to keep a shower to create a 3/4 bath somewhere. It would be totally worth it.

I like ledges, too. I like them deep enough that I can place an IKEA Variera box, that my husband drilled holes in the bottom of, to tidily keep a large Dr. Bronner's, Every Man Jack, Naturoli Shampoo, and 2 razors. Ledges are also handy for keeping an extra hand towel, to wipe down the shower and fixtures (we have hard water). I also use them for shaving. I could probably use a niche for shaving, too, lol, but I might not be as graceful....