Just cut a piece of 1x2" board about 12" long. Cut an "L" shape on the end that will ride over the thicker tile, which you put up first. Scoop in some thinset into the "band" area with a margin trowel and "adjust" or screed it with the board. Let it dry. NOW, you have a slightly raised area upon which to tile the glass and it will be the same height as the field tile.

What about using the grout and additive just as you would thinset, and then just grouting it as usual after drying? I had wanted to use the Laticrete epoxy grout with it, as it's easier to clean. blondelle, you can certainly do that. Use XYZ colored grout and add 4237 to it and use that as your colored thinset to adhere the tiles to the wall. Then after the thinset has cured, use XYZ colored epoxy grout to grout the tiles. You can't be promised an exact color match, as sometimes cured epoxy grout isn't an exact color match to cured portland grout, but with one being behind the glass tile and the other in the grout joint, is should work fine. Can colorant be added to thinset without compromising it in some way? It seems it would be hard to mix in evenly. I've never used them, but there are color-tinted liquid admixes that you can use to color white powders. I use dry pigments, and I've always mixed dry pigments with the dry powder very, very well, then after I add any liquids. After consulting with various tech departments years ago when I first started using pigment additives, I've always used 10% as my limit by weight. Example, no more than 5 pounds of pigment added to a 50# bag of cement. Since these bagged materials are about 50/50 sand/cement, I'd limit my pigment to 5%, or 2-1/2 lbs of pigment to a 50 pound bag of thinset. Usually you won't come even close to that. But again for color-matching, or for getting a known color, that's why it's easiest to modify an already colored grout to turn it into thinset, then use the same colored grout as grout. I'm afraid of proof-reading this, now even my head is spinning! Mongo

Thanks for the feedback! Just picked up 2 different "TEC" grout colors: "sand" and taupe grey... I was really looking to NOT having the grout lines stand out but let the breaking light (from under cabinet halogen lights) really show the glass lines and shadows. Well, I'll do a 'dry test' today and will post the finished product later.

Well outside bids are coming in and wow,what a wake up call! The ceramic we had picked out compared to the glass we picked and wanted to go with price difference was so great we are going to stick to ceramic with glass as an accent. Our shower is 4x5.. 2 walls are 4x8,one is a 4x4 half wall and the back wall is 5x8. Bids on glass with schluter rails were coming in at about the same from 2 different contractors at $8K,compared to ceramic,we had 3 estimates,2 were right at $4K and one from Sears was $8K.No idea what was up with the Sears bid on ceramic! lol These prices are for complete shower,pouring a preslope,Denshield and tiling,prices do not include a glass door,we want to wait til later to see if we will actually need a door.It's a fairly large shower. I started reading differences in tiles and started thinking i would need porcelain but after reading about the differences in ceramic and porcelain,i realized ceramic was fine so long as i read the ratings and understood what they meant.So i got a little knowledge,which is mostly a good thing! So thank you everyone for the input!