Is that your only bathroom? People do it. Maybe it's more important your co-worker knows what's involved in being a GC than knowing you? I don't know. When I started I knew nothing and had no experience, so I knew no way. Having gone through two bathrooms, if I had the time I might consider it but I'd spend so much time doing research I'd probably never complete it. Are you moving pipes? If not, you might be better off with a skilled, insured expensive handy man who would relish your input. Someone who loves to learn but is so swamped with work, they'd be glad to have you figure out the best grout, water proofing system, exhaust fan requiremens, etc. Those types do it all themselves so you'd only have to find the one right fit instead of asking the GC what type of grout his tile guy uses as that usually ticks them off and sets up red flag for them that you're going to be a PITA. Maybe that would be a better fit if your primary concern is that it's done with best practices? Maybe being your own GC is the best fit if you have enough experience to pull it off and your focus is best practices, exquisite craftsmanship and your budget allows for that?

Thank you all for your input! From a cost & speed stand point, I think a pre-formed shower pan is probably what we would prefer. Our shower is a pretty standard size 36"x36" so I don't anticipate running into a lot of trouble in finding a pan that will work. live_wire_oak thank you for your suggestions on other materials for the shower pan, I will look into them. I agree with you that if we had plenty of time, we could probably figure out how to do the shower pan & tile the walls. Our timing may not have been the best for this project as we have a fairly hard deadline of end of March for getting this done. As a result we're trying to do what we feel confident doing and farm out that which we could probably do, but would be massively slower at. Calling individual trades might be another way to go. Hadn't considered that option. I'm willing to GC it myself if that's what it takes.

Cannot argue with how it turned out, that is for sure. It looks great!! The guy doing our tile in the bathroom said we were wrong for our choice of shower floor and accent tile, but we liked them, and think it looks great. That is all that really matters anyway, right?

@Nic_ H I know you are trying to wrap this up. I'm unclear if you provided the materials, etc. It's unclear to me how much you were directly involved - or if you simply said, "this is what I'd like". You are right, your job is not a playground for unskilled workers. They should have provided someone with the skills to do this work - or not taken the job. Unfortunately, installers can be overconfident and tile jobs are unforgiving. The only recourse is to rip them out - and that is going to be a large loss for someone. I don't know that you had a team that had the skills for this job - or if things started going off track and nobody was willing to stop it. The tub may or may not be long enough to install the tile backer properly - it looks a little short. It looks like the tub was installed on the outside of the sidewall also. I'm not sure why that was done - was it so that it would meet up with existing floor tile? Doing a remodel is much more difficult than it may seem. An experienced contractor knows the "gotcha's" because they have done this before (like really thinking through tub length, backing system, how all of it goes together.) They know to avoid some issues (avoid tile to the ceiling), to use products with which they are familiar, have consistent quality, and have good support. They should supervise their crew to make sure it's done properly - and not the way the installer "has always done it". You can certainly try approaching them with: "Here are the instructions for this product, and here's what you did". My guess is that they will say it's the way they always do it... and they have installed dozens of jobs that way, etc. Especially since you have paid them, it's going to be difficult to get a resolution that makes you happy. I'm with you, I think that this will last at least 2 years, but it should be a 20 year solution - and I really question if it will last that long.