yes horizontally, its the short wall that I'm having trouble with figuring out. A contractor will be doing it, but I don't want to hear any excuses from them. Also, should I run a piece of bullnose past the top of the tub all the way down the wall, or just run the bullnose to the tile flange of the tub?

It should be laid out in a square stacked pattern or a 1/3 lap pattern at the most. Running bond is a no no. Large format tile tend to have a bit of "droop" over their length, and the stacked pattern minimizes the potential for lippage. You also need to be sure that your substrate can properly support the tile. It needs to e very flat, and very rigid. If you are on crawl space, be sure that the joists are close enough to gether and deep enough to create the stiffness necessary.

I'd want to do the same type of layout. But I'm kind of rigid like that in my thinking. It might look too close in layout, that the other looks like it was put in by mistake. So the limiting factor is the large format tile, recommended not to do a 50% offset. So I'd do the same with the wall, unless you really deviated from the pattern and did something totally different, like a stacked or herringbone. Again that is my take on it. Maybe others have other ideas and images of examples.

I am in the middle of a remodel and the guys have started tiling the shower walls. This is a reasonably large shower about 70 inches long and 50 wide. We are using 12x24 inch ceramic tile laid with a 33% offset. They have completed tiling the 70" side wall and we have got into a discussion on how to continue the tiling on the two side walls. It has always been my understanding that the tiles would "fold" at the corners and the section of tile cut off from the 70" wall would continue at 90 degrees. They say that they prefer to "frame" the tiles on the 50" walls to get the best layout on the 50" wall and then let the corners end up as the pattern falls out. What I can see that I end up with a pice of tile 3" wide on one side of the corner and then have a 8" section continuing - this looks a bit odd to me but they say this is a layout they commonly use - my thought is maybe not with 12x24" tile and in an offset pattern. Most of the pictures I see on the internet show the "folded" tile look which is what I think i prefer but since the tile layout was started on the back wall may end up with some odd cuts at the ends. Just trying to get some feedback from the experts here as they will be coming back to start on the other walls first thing in the morning! Thanks