How you do the infill depends on the eventual elevation differences you'll have between the hex you want to keep and whatever subfloor surface you'll have to work off of once whatever flooring you have under the tub is removed. Cement board is a fine material to tile off of. If you need more depth than that, then you can add plywood under the tub, then cover that with cement board, then tile on the cement board. When you install the cement board, you first have to bed it in thinset (thinset spread on the subfloor with a 1/4" notched trowel), then you screw or nail it down. The thinset isn't there to bond the cement board to the subfloor. The fasteners do that. The thinset simply fills in any micro-voids between the cement board and the subfloor which eliminates any future vertical deflection between the two materials. You can use unmodified thinset, about $10 a bag, between teh cement board and the subfloor. If you want to keep the same size hex under the tub that you have on your floor, as has been mentioned, you can add a border or transition strip on the floor, then install your new hex under the tub. You can transition with a solid inset piece, or you can add a dot or key (or some other) type of transition: As has been mentioned, sometimes trying to match things perfectly doesn't look so good when you can't get a perfect match. In that case, you can keep the metarial (marble) and shape (hex) but change the tile size. Add a transition strip, then tile with larger hex, say a 3" marble hex, under the tub. Then there is the option of keeping the material ant aproximate tile size, but changing the shape. For example, going to an obong hex: Or you can shift gears completely. You have options. Probably too many! lol If you want to keep things familiar between the new tile and old, try to keep two of the three properties similar; tile size, tile material, tile shape (pattern). The more you diverge from "matchy-match", the more unique the tub space can become. And do realize there is nothing wrong with that. If the other elements in the bathroom allow it, the tub floor space and the tub alcove can become a design element on its own.

We are helping my in-laws fix up their turn of the century Maui home. Kentile 9" x 9" Georgetown Red Colonial Brick tiles were used in various parts of the home. We need to finish some areas and are hoping someone might know of where we can buy more. We would need 5 boxes. Mahalo!!

Long story on why I had to do it this way but my tile person says there won’t be any damage to wood. The current tile is marble and it’s cracked in many spots. Also, it looks very dated and we are hoping to replace it and get a more contemporary look. I’m looking for the right color in porcelain but having very hard time finding a good complement. Do I go darker than wood? Do I go lighter? Here’s a few photos some samples.

I had one house that had the expanded sheet metal, under all plaster. Made for a beautiful plaster job, but, sure wasnt fun when we needed to add a doorway during a minor remodel. Also 50's house. I think, if you really want all that tile gone, you might hire someone just to do the demo and the clean up afterwards. To put sheet rock on, you will need to demo all the walls up to the ceiling where you have that tile, and I suspect it is plaster above the tile, rather than sheetrock. It will be a very dusty, and dirty job.