Hi Palimpsest thanks for giving me the names of which Daltile lines to look at-most helpful! The Dal website is not very user friendly and I was able to search by the specific lines you mentioned and get quickly to some options that might work. Thanks! I wonder why companies make it so confusing by having different lines- why not a page that shows you all the field/trim pieces that are avail in a certain color? Frustrating.I didn't know that I could get a cove mold profile in the Dal 100 color-I would have used that for tiling the kids bath (which we just finished-doh!) Before I understood that there were so many different lines of Daltile, I actually went to both the Daltile store and another store that carried Dal but neither had the acanthus tile to look at. I wish I would have at least thought to ask to see anything in the "snowdrift" color, to see what other Dal white color that it might go with. Back I go again. After a visit to another tile showroom today, I'm seriously considering pairing an (in stock) handmade 3x6 field & decorative relief tile from another line I found with the cheaper Daltile 100 chair and base tiles. (Then, I'd get the nice irregularity of handmades but keep cost downs by using the cheaper trims.) I must admit the idea to combine the two was a happy accident: I set a piece of Dal chair rail I was carrying just to compare the scale/proportion and was shocked that the glazes were close enough to go. Incidentally, it only worked with one line of handmade tile that had a white clay body, all the ones with the beige clay had too much contrast. I will check out the Ann Sacks you mentioned, too, thanks. I had the same thought, though, that unless I go with the Daltile trims, most of the pieces in these other tile lines are going to almost add up to the $28 cap/listello Waterworks tile in my inspiration photo! ouch.

Gary - I thought I ran the numbers right. It was an extreme 24 hours of using 10 therms. I don't know the actual usage since I have NG and HP. My worst winter bill was $70 or about 60 therms. But throw in some electicity use and it might be 180 therms total for the month. So I figured a cold 24 hour period might be 10 therms. Now I figure most of that is at night or early in the AM. It is a fairly large house with lots of windows and our average temps this winter were just about 10 degrees below average. So all in all, I expect 4 therms to be an average daily usage in the coldest month, with the heat loss overnight to be about 2 therms or just under 1 degree drop. Someone on another board actually suggested not insulating the sides or bottom. Because 60 degrees in the summer is great (probably no shortage of heat) and 60 degrees in the winter is probably great also. Now - in the shoulder months, you might get the water to 70 degrees and need some heat in the am. But the delta T is small with the earth and either way, the COP is high. Good point about the solar cover not being that efficient in the winter. That may be a big deal. I can always use an underground storage tank for solar heated water. There would be less heat loss. That has to be balanced with the heat gain of the solar cover. And then the efficiency of the panels would be better because the pool water is colder. That is a hard one. I was ideally planning a solar cover and then a night time insulating cover. Might be a bit much....

elektromaus, check out the link below from the bathrooms forum. sjharris just tore out yellow tile. If it is like yours, maybe you could respond to her remodel post over on the bathrooms side and see if she has any of the old tile... It's a long shot because she seemed glad to be rid of it, but you never know... Here is a link that might be useful: 50's bath redo post

Update: the Mission West tiles were not the right shade of green. I also ordered some samples of the retro liners, which look great, except for this one issue: they're displayed in only one color combo online, so it didn't even occur to me to specify a color, and then lo and behold, the samples they sent me were completely different color combos that had nothing to do with my color scheme and thus did not help me at all. Then when I emailed to ask about that, the woman (Kate) said she had just sent what they had, and if I wanted to see a specific color I would have to pay for it and wait X weeks for it to come in. I asked if she could send me ANYTHING (even a 1"x1" or whatever) in the shade of red used on the liners I thought I had ordered (the samples that I got had no red in them). Y'know, being as how my range is red, and being as how I would want a liner that would go with the Depression-green field tile, I thought it would be a good idea to see what shade of red they use. But then I didn't hear a peep from her. And speaking for all of us who work in financial-related industries, I hope you appreciate the effort we have gone to in order to provide you with an actual Depression in which you can install them. Um... well, "appreciate" may not be quite the word I had in mind. :-)