Oh I didn't think about cleaning the carrara... is it really that difficult? Ugh... I love the hex border idea. I thought about an area rug, but I'm nervous about getting the spacing wrong without the tub in place. Or having real rugs overlap with the tile one. I'm also nervous about putting them around the tub in case the tub goes in place and they are off centered or something. I have OCD fears ;) Thank you for showing me photos of your lovely bathroom shanghaimom! Any suggestions for a backspash? I'm thinking about a blue-ish wall color too. This bathroom is so pretty:

I feel for you, Marjie. It sounds like you have a leak that you need to address. But with only one full bath in the house you cannot afford the time for the whole shower pan construction. I bought my house in February, and they started the construction right away. I am still waiting for a few final details to be done, not to mention the correction for the shower problem. But at least we had a basement to live in while it was going on (complete with full bath!). Btw, our tub downstairs is that all-in-one construction (fiberglass? acrylic?), which I know isn't the dream shower you were probably thinking of, but one could probably be installed in a day or two without any tile work since it goes up the walls. It has nifty ledges on it. I'm curious what our pros on here think of that type of solution. You could still have a beautiful tile floor which wouldn't have the same waterproofing concerns. I spent a lot of money of my master bath, and I love my design, but the aggravation has not been worth it. And there is still no consensus on what is wrong, or the proper fix. Oh, and another thing. I prefer my new $36 shower head in the basement to the $500 one in the master bath that is too hard for me to turn the settings for the jets because my hands are too small. It wasn't like I got to see it before he installed it. This one does everything my expensive one does except that it doesn't have the slide bar: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JV5HO3G?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00 Actually, it does more. You can run the rain shower head and the hand held at the same time.

My two bathrooms are as polar opposites as you can possible get! I'll explain: My bathroom (the master ensuite is light (but not white marble, hex floors and white/light gray paint light). Moonlight "travertine like" porcelain floors and walls, Seatones (blue, aqua and sea green) glass tiles, Giallo Ornamentale granite and a light blue ceiling. Dark vanity. Crystal glass sink. The master bedroom and ensuite are totally different from the rest of the house and we're ok with that. Those are private areas. The rest of the house is done in rich warm colors, rich browns, pumpkin, deep golds, plum, dark sage green, bronze and black. DH's bathroom flows with the look of the rest of the house. His granite is mostly black, deep orange, dark gold. His glass sink is a Colbalt Copper color. Floor tiles and tub/shower surround is dark charcoal (basically black with accents of tumbled crema marfil and ORB metals). The walls were just finished today. A beautiful spanish knife texture with a glazed faux finish. Color is reddish bronzed over dark gold base. This is also the bathroom guests will use. It's bold and dramatic. He likes it. I like it too but I much prefer the tranquility of the Caribbean inspired color palette in my bathroom. So yeah, I have no problem with bathrooms looking TOTALLY different <g> Oh, they ARE on opposite ends of the house :)

Thanks for your comments, all! (Pardon the lack of formatting, I've been typing this all on my phone!) ____________ Roarah: I think the marble-look hex option looks great! And the grey tile for herringbone is lovely too. I actually was set on doing a herringbone floor at first until it became more difficult to source a 3x20 or 4x24 length tile (I prefer a very long and lean look with a herringbone). Not sure if this will help you differentiate/decide between them, but the herringbone in that size feels a bit more modern to me, whereas the marble hex feels more classic/luxurious but I'm sure either choice will be beautiful on your floors! mrsshayne & grannysmith18: Thanks for sharing your experiences (I've been researching the heck out of those who've lived with penny tile floors to see if they ended up loving/hating them; interestingly, I found much more info on the black penny tile look but not a lot regarding white (except not to use white grout). Yeah, I think the amount of grout and worrying about it getting dirty is what's holding me back. Also, whether having such a large floor area of penny tile will be visually overwhelming instead of soothing and inviting. ____________ Latest Update: I actually returned the original 12x24 grey Porcelain (it was beautiful but was a bit rough in texture which I wasn't sure I wanted underfoot in the bathroom) and ended up buying a White Penny Porcelain mosaic with Mapei Flexcolor CQ Frost grout for the floors. However (>_<), I still can't help but have that nagging sense that this isn't the "right floor" yet... I realize I'm doing the penny or considering hex tiles because I feel like I owe it to the Victorian gods to be historically accurate but at the same time, if we could just have a smooth, one surface (minimal grout lines), white or light grey colored, easy to clean floor, I would. In other words, I feel like I'm trying to put in penny or smaller hex cause that's what it seems like I'm "supposed" to do, but I can tell that I don't actually love them (except for the marble hex which is out of our budget, since we have over 100 SF to tile) which is probably why I ruled them out in the first place, sigh. So I'm still in dilemma mode...but am thinking of choosing one of these really large format tiles from a local retailer (who offers bargain prices on bathroom fixtures and larger cement-look tile): https://goo.gl/photos/3wE9kcS3WPbp9sD18 Mainly, I'm reminded that my original goals for the bathroom were to make it whiter and brighter (maximize the minimal light), more spa-like, with some modern flair/finishes at a reasonable cost, though choosing the "right" tile seems like a decision that will never end until we finally get started on laying things down. Along with trying to choose a finish that a future buyer won't curse me for, the way I did when I saw the red terra cotta on the bathroom floor :P. ____________ I'll keep the thread updated with how things turn out (I really appreciate when others have done the same; it's neat to see people's considerations for why they did what they did and the incredible changes that can be made), just hope the bathroom doesn't turn out ugly (cause then I'll be less inclined to post :P!) Thanks for reading!