How's this shower tile layout?

[KillerCharlie]

Leaning towards 12x24 tile in my shower. The pic below shows all 3 walls. The circles are the showerheads (one on each side). The mosaic in the middle is a niche - I'm positioning it that way so I don't have any U-shaped tile cutouts.

I decided to make the center of the tiles on the wall line up up with the controls / showerhead, not the middle of the tiled wall - that's why it doesn't quite look even. The tiled wall extends a few inches past the shower pan onto the wall.

Does this look reasonable? My other idea was to go with 4x12 tiles but they really only come in white which looks kind of plain to me.

 

[jmagg]

When using 12x24 (or any wide tile), be sure the sub straight is very flat. Use a long straight edge to be sure there are no high spots, which cause ledges. Your finished project depends on a flat sub straight.

 

[herm0016]

looks good. you could try 1/3 offset on those large tile as well, we did 1/3 offset and vertical for a wall above a counter with 12x24 that looked very good.

 

[BoomerD]

When using 12x24 (or any wide tile), be sure the sub straight is very flat. Use a long straight edge to be sure there are no high spots, which cause ledges. Your finished project depends on a flat sub straight.

substrate.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Yeah I sistered up the studs and sanded them down to get them flat. The smaller back wall has a bit of a bow in it but I'm going to float it with mortar to get it perfect. I'm going to be super anal about alignment and use leveling wedges. I'll probably use 1/2x1/2 square notch trowel and back butter each tile with a skim coat to maximize adjustability.

My first layout was 1/3 overlap but horizontally with only 2-3 tiles per row it just didn't look good.

Still thinking about smaller tiles but they just don't have the same range in designs (unless you spend $$$)

 

[Motostu]

When using 12x24 (or any wide tile), be sure the sub straight is very flat. Use a long straight edge to be sure there are no high spots, which cause ledges. Your finished project depends on a flat sub straight.

This can't be emphasized enough. If you end up having to adjust for a bow or out of plumb wall after you start putting up tile, it'll take at least twice as long as it should. That was my experience at least.

Pattern looks good; similar to what I did, but I used 12x12. I have 4x4 noce at a diagonal for the floor.

 

[Greenman]

Yeah I sistered up the studs and sanded them down to get them flat. The smaller back wall has a bit of a bow in it but I'm going to float it with grout to get it perfect. I'm going to be super anal about alignment and use leveling wedges. I'll probably use 1/2x1/2 square notch trowel and back butter each tile with a skim coat to maximize adjustability.

My first layout was 1/3 overlap but horizontally with only 2-3 tiles per row it just didn't look good.

Still thinking about smaller tiles but they just don't have the same range in designs (unless you spend $$$)

Float out the lumps with thinset, not grout.
If you want a perfect surface to tile over, do the entire shower in mortar rather than backer board. It's old school, and will last a lifetime.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Lol that was a typo - yes thinset, not grout!

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Is the niche the same height as a single tile? If so, I'd have them put the niche so the top and bottom line up with the row of tiles -- i.e. raise the niche so the bottom meats the row.

We did our shower in a 3x6 subway tile. The niche was sized so it would be exactly 5 rows tall (15"), 5 tiles wide (30") and lined up so there were no weirdly sized cuts on any side.

edit: Something like this maybe? The 12" height when finished would be closer to 11" which might be tight for taller bottles, so YMMV.

 

[iRONic]

Leaning towards 12x24 tile in my shower. The pic below shows all 3 walls. The circles are the showerheads (one on each side). The mosaic in the middle is a niche - I'm positioning it that way so I don't have any U-shaped tile cutouts.

Here's the last three I designed. As we used larger field tile we used larger accent tile. The 12x24 looked horrible with horizontal accent tiles so I went with the hex.

 

[iRONic]

Shower pan thread

 

[KillerCharlie]

Nice - that last one looks like 1/3 overlap. I'll lay one out.

I'm doing everything myself and perfectly lining up the niche with a row if tiles would be way too much if a pain for me.