There are no hard and fast rules for tile orientation. You can run them whichever way looks best to you. My daughter and my son both recently redid their bathrooms and put 12x24 tiles stacked vertically on the walls. They didn't have to decide on vertical vs horizontal for the floor because they used 24x24 squares on the floor. In my bath I have 10x13 vertical on the walls and 18x18 on the diagonal on the floor. IMO the large square tiles make their small floor spaces look bigger. Do your tiles come in squares too? Maybe you could put them on the floor. If you stay with the 12x24s on the floor placing then horizontal ( long side parallel to the tub may make your room look wider). You can still put the wall tiles whichever way you want. Here's a couple shots of my DD's tiles Good luck in your remodel.

haha! I'm laughing. Thank you for the input. yes, the lights drive me crazy. From previous owner. I haven't tackled this room yet, because it's low priority for me... but I've been forced to give it some attention, now. I'd really prefer another style, but I suppose we could at least flip them the correct way. The art is original to the previous owner as well. They left everything behind! I just haven't gotten to this room since we're blending a family with 11 kids, doing the distance learning thing, and have a bunch of repairs and higher priority projects I've focused on. Literally didn't even touch some of the ordinary art just out of exhaustion. lol! Love the input so far! Thank you

It takes mine 20 minutes to fill all the way - thus I don’t always do that!! I’m thinking it may be because it and all the faucet stuff replaced 50 year old stuff. At least that’s what I understand from the plumbers!

Or you could just go up the color strip to a lighter shade. I used Tradewind in one of our bathrooms. It’s one shade lighter than Rain on the color strip, it’s still fairly heavy on the walls though. Topsoil, or the lightest shade on the strip will offer more contrast.