Should the grout be the same color? Not necessarily. Will it look weird to use a darker gray on the floor and a lighter gray in the shower? Not at all. Any recommended colors for the shower and floor tiles along these lines? I've been getting stuff at Lowe's and they carry MAPEI Warm gray for the subway tile, and silver for the hex, if you lke a darker grey for the hex. Silver is actually a medium grey, but it'll appear alot darker with the white tile. Our bathroom isn't perfectly square. I think a colored grout seam that is uneven will be really obvious(that's my understanding where you would do any flubbing). Can you grout just the seam white? Can you skip grout and caulk it? Any suggestions here? Grout everything on the floor the same color. it'll actually show up more if you try doing what you suggested. It'll literally draw attention to it. What you want to dpo is make sure that you're square to the most obvious walls from the door. Especially with the hex, it won't be quite as obvious as you think, unless it's WAY out, and then nothing you can do will hide it, even using a blending color grout. One other thing-- that joint where the floor hits the walls should be caulked, but still caulk it with a caulking that matches the grout, both color AND texture. Does anyone know what the measure is for hex tile and subway? For subway, use unsanded, and for the hex, use sanded.

We are currently at the point of putting up durock in our new shower. We will be painting redgard on top of the durock. We are using a Kohler cast iron pan and have built in a bench at the far end. We are DIYing it and neither of us have done a bathroom before so we are trying to do all our due diligence so our bathroom doesn't look like crap in the end! I have a bunch of questions I'm hoping some of you would be willing to help with. First, let me explain our design choices so you have an idea of the look we're going for. We're doing a white subway tile in the shower (Interceramic cheap stuff from Lowes). We bought the 2x6 bull nose pieces to run around the sides in the opposite direction as the subway tile. Chrome thermostatic rain shower. Frameless glass shower doors. The floor will be marble with a basketweave tile rug in the center. The vanity is white with carrera marble top. So here goes my questions: 1. Durock, fuzzy or smooth out? I've read that the fuzzy side should go out when using thinset, however I'm unclear on whether or not we should use the fuzzy side considering a layer of redgard will be painted over prior to tile. 2. Niches. We are adding two niches. One larger one, probably around a foot tall, and one narrow one directly below it for razors, etc. The back will be basketweave marble, the sides will be white subway tile we're using on the rest of the shower. We've read floor elfs tutorial on building a niche (THANK YOU) so I think we understand the construction. My question is for the "shelf" part. I'd really like to use a solid base however our budget is busted for getting something fabricated. Would it be possible to use a 3/8" marble tile and somehow polish the outer edge so its not raw ourselves? Which leads to my next question. 3. The bench. We have a bench we've constructed out of 2x4's and plywood. Again, I would really love to have a solid surface instead of tile but having something fabricated is not in our budget. I was considering using 2 18x18 marble tiles which should fit perfectly but would this look strange? Also, same problem of needing to polish the raw edge of the tile. Also, is marble just bad news for a top in the shower which will probably be coming in contact with shampoo, soap, shaving cream etc? I'm concerned about etching and looking like garbage. Any other suggestions on material we could use that'd be in keeping with the rest of our "look"? 4. Grout. I've discovered that I really love the look of white grout with white subway tile. However, I can't stand devoting a lot of time to keeping the shower clean. And I really can't stand dirty grout but I also hate to scrub it. We have a hand shower so we can do a quick rinse after showing to get rid of soap, shampoo residue but the odds of us wiping the entire shower down after each use are slim. Will a white epoxy grout on the walls just be a huge hassle with keeping it clean? Is it worth the premium vs just sealing a regular grout? And, lastly, any direction to a good tile tutorial would be appreciated. We want to make sure we don't have funky looking cuts or awkward looking tiles. If you've made it this far, thank you!! This endeavor has turned out to be a ton more work and research than I expected and this site has been an invaluable resource!

If a salesman were to tell me not to use a snaded grout because it might ruin the material, my first reaction would be then what will normal use do?!?!? I've not only doneglass with Spectralock, but I've also done it with conventional sanded grout, as well, and I specify this because the sand in conventional grout isn't as fine as that found in Spectralock. Now, that said, glass is very much like glazed ceramic in that not all glass has the same hardness. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there isn't a rating scale like the PEI rating scale for glazed ceramic. But just to give you an idea, the glass in the pic below, as you can see, is a very glossy looking tile, and that IS sanded grout in the joints:

Maybe it depends on where you live and how humid it is inside and how good the ventilation is in your bathroom. I am in the Pacific NW which is not exactly the desert, and I have never in 30 years had mildew on any surface in the bathroom. I'm not Susie Homemaker either, and I wait to see stuff rather than do "pre-emptive" cleaning, if you know what I mean. I have seen the pink stuff (bacteria, not mold) that grows on grout and behind caulk before, though! On the epoxy grout, it shows up only down near the bottom row of tiles and it comes right off without serious scrubbing. We always use liquid soap and spritz with an after shower spray once in a while. I agree a yellowing of white grout with those tiles would not be good, but I bet you could get away with a gray.