Obviously, you are in good hands with Bills advice. I'm not a pro, but I'm neck deep in my second 50's era bath complete gut-job so I have a little perspective. My guess on the complete rip out is that they think it will ultimately be easier. Think of it like a developer who builds and entire subdivision. What's the 1st thing they do? Tear out every discernable tree on the property. Makes the re-build that much easier. One big word of caution on tearing down to the studs. Those walls ARE NOT STRAIGHT!! Back in the day, framing was secondary and all was "fixed" with floated materials like plaster and mud. Just take a level (or even a yardstick) and go around the untouched wall and check it out. Todays materials need FLAT. Sheetrock and CBU don't bend. Any tear out will require a good bit of shimming to get things square. As Bill has told me on a number of occasions, a good tile job needs a nice square room. Make it abundantly clear to whomever you use that you want all those walls flat and all those corners square if they gut it. One other thing, I personally would pass on the partial tear out as 1 of your bids described. Bills' idea will work quite well (surprise, surprise), as he advocates tearing out the plaster and leaving the mud. Ripping out the mud and leaving the plaster could make for a nightmare of a matching job...especially if he's going to try and match new sheetrock to old plaster. Plaster is around an inch thick and wall sheetrock is normally 1/2". I'm forced to do this very thing (we had to move a door)and I've been putting it off. I've done it before and it's a b!tch. Unless you're in the northeast (specifically MA or RI) you'll have a hard time even finding a plaster guy...let alone afford him.

ha, b's mom -- I think of a backsplash because I am a hopeless *mosaic and tile addict*! : ) Guess you haven't seen my daughter's bathroom LOL. It's a riotous yet controlled explosion of Pratt & Larson seconds/overruns that I facemounted on mosaicmount and worked into the design of the entire room. I only have in-process photos, no current photos of it because my daughter is 14 and we don't have a housekeeper, iykwim. Anywhere I can tile I generally try to,and if I find some nice tile at a salvage, I have a tendency to buy it and then figure out where to use it somewhere down the road. It's even happened one or two times : ). I was actually thinking of wainscoting in the room, but I want to find a tile that is the same color as the paint. We actually have some two-or-three-fist-sized rocks of labradorite that we will have cut to make slices to work in somewhere, probably in the shower. I can't cut it because it fractures too easily. I may try to get the fabricator who has sold us the countertop piece to see if he can cut these rocks. I'll try to imagine the room without a backsplash...honestly, I've had bathrooms in other houses without a backsplash and it can work...I'll keep an open mind. I love the mirror frame idea to have that be the reference to the gold floor -- a combination picking up the chrome tone would be cool. Thanks! You know, I could probably even do it myself, I imagine, with a couple of shades of rub-n-buff? After a little observation and practice? And thanks, kp -- I appreciate your vote. I'll find a way to highlight the counter so it doesn't disappear into the wall color. Glad to know that someone else besides me notices through-composed floors! : ) And stinky, I do think the lighting fixture is beautiful, as you say -- once again, found at salvage, but I then searched online and found it at retail back in 2007 for about $200...the shades look like large crystal block ice cubes. The pantry is a combination of Ikea metal-mesh shelving (I like it because it's see-through but much tougher than that plastic-coated'ventilated' shelving with the ridges which I despise (it's just me -- other people may love it but it's like fingernails on a blackboard to me) -- we tried both, solid wood and the metal mesh, and I vastly preferred the metal because I could actually see what was on the higher shelves) and wood* on one wall because we couldn't get the metal in sizes we wanted, and the marmoleum counter. There will also be a mahogany (to match the Ikea Hallarum) sink cabinet and mahogany countertop edging (vintage floor moulding I've stripped and stained to match the Hallarum) as well. I'm completely in love with the marmoleum -- a kind g'webber pointed me in the direction of great wood tints and I've warmed up a light blue (again, salvage) to a joyous spring blue-green. I think if I could live my entire life in the nexus of brown, gray, gold, blue and green I'd be happy : ) *Yes, the wood is a salvage find too, an extremely high grade *new* plywood that we bought scads of random offcuts of...it's a very light off-white maple (I think) plywood, and we had no idea how it got to the salvage but one day we went to the Museum of Contemporary Craft here in Portland and saw the current exhibit on one of my idols, Betty Feves, and lo and behold, all the display stands for her pottery/ceramics were made of *exactly* the same wood! There's no mistaking it! So I'm one degree closer to Betty Feves now! I was thinking just to paint the plywood, but not after we discovered its noble provenance : ) Well, maybe after the vicarious thrill wears off and I want more uniformity in the room...but not now. o.k., just for the fun of it I'll link to the exhibit, just have to spread the Feves gospel wherever I can : ) Here is a link that might be useful: visceral, glorious Betty Feves

The tile done in the second picture of my first post is actually 6 x 36 wood look porcelain tile ( a different company though). It is laid the same way as mine. It is was done by the main tiler and looks beautiful. It is 1/8 grout lines no lippage at all! I would post a picture of it but it is all covered up right now. I was harsh about the second guy helping him because he had already cut a lot of corners with other things. He wasted a lot of tile getting cuts wrong - which the other contractors themselves were complaining about and bringing some to my attention. Some really bad cuts I noticed he tried to pressure me in to accepting - when I almost caved another one came to me and confirmed it was not good. He basically tiled my kitchen and left the molding on the wall. On top of that all the cuts against the molding were jagged. Like one part would up against the molding and the farthest was .5 to an inch. When I asked what would happen with it he was just answered that it would all be filled in with grout. Dark grout that would make it stand out even more. EDIT :: Here is the link to her tile: https://www.lowes.com/pd/CERAMICAS-TESANY-Tahoe-Gray-Wood-Look-Porcelain-Floor-and-Wall-Tile-Common-6-in-x-36-in-Actual-5-82-in-x-35-29-in/1000379225 Maybe her tile - despite being larger, allows it. If that's the case, I can wrap this around my head and get over it. However, if hers is similar to mine and the good tiler is able to do it without lippage in that layout with smaller grout line - I would like to go for it. EDIT:: Is this another possible solution. When they relay it Would relaying it to overlap in thirds instead of 1/2 help. I am not to particular about that if it will help me get the smaller grout lines.

You need documentation no matter what comes next. You need all your in-progress photos, all texts and emails between you and contractor, the contract, the texts and emails from the tile people, printed out manufacturer’s instructions for the waterproofing materials he used such as wall boards and pan liner, texts and emails from the local rep for the manufacture (if you contacted them), etc, etc. Buy the TCNA handbook and read the shower chapters. Ask for a meeting. In meeting explain what your concerns are and cite all the things that he did wrong, with in-progress photos and cross-referencing all the violations to the standards, codes and instructions. Ask what his plan is for re-building the shower. If he refuses, ask him does that mean he’s quitting the project? If he says yes, that means he has quit, you did not fire him, document/confirm that in an email. If he says no he’s not quitting, then tell him remedying this situation is part of the project, so ask him which day he’s coming over to demo and re-build it. He may quit at that point. If he does try to re-built it, if/after that fix fails, you can fire him. Then send a demand letter certified return receipt asking for full refund plus the cost that you will have to pay to hire a new tile professional to demo and re-build (use local averages or get actual bids). Cite all the violations like you did in the meeting with the references. We had to do all this stuff when our GC quit rather than fix the issues. It’s a PITA but we got double our money back. Read my “Project Goes South” post, you might find some helpful info in there. Now, if you don’t have any of the documentation I listed above, don’t have a contract, etc, etc, I don’t know what leverage you have. You can still have the meeting and send the demand letter, but if it goes to court documentation is your friend and you want max documentation. Hopefully you can dig up some photos of the waterproofing process involving both the floor and the walls. If you don’t have much, add this to your meeting: ask the contractor to simply explain each step (like he’s teaching you) he used to build your shower, starting with framing. Then write down every word he says, asking him to slow down or repeat if needed. Don’t correct or challenge anything he says; let him explain his process. That can substitute a little bit for your lack of other documentation. Then you can cross reference any wrong info he told you to the codes, standards and manufacturer’s instructions, and proceed from there with demand letter. If he refuses your demand letter, which he will, you can decide about suing him. In my state justice court (small claims) is non-binding. We didn’t sue our GC, but he sued us saying we fired wrongfully him. We responded with counter-suit in District Court and asked that the lower case get rolled up to that level because of the $ amount and we wanted a binding decision. It’s a pain and I hope we never have to talk to a judge again, but we had to respond to quit-GCs suit and go through the process. Best of luck to you.