I bought some very cheap (.50c/sqft) but beautiful, white 13"x4" tile for the new master bathroom shower, but miscalculated the square footage and didn't have enough of it. I bought the entire stock they had at the store (100sqft), and our new shower's interior surface area is actually 150sqft. We had a concurrent conundrum in the old (guest) bathroom, where we had installed a new shower kit (nozzle and faucet), and had a huge patch of broken/missing tile that needed to be replaced. However, that particular size of tile (4-3/8"x4-3/8") is not frequently used or manufactured anymore, so it was impossible to find, much less purchase in time for Moses the tile subcontractor to install it this week. Our only other option was to devise a homemade mosaic solution with broken pieces to surround the new shower kit, which we REALLY didn't want to do.
So Moses suggested a brilliant solution: rather than do the weird mosaic patch, just completely remove the tile in the guest bathroom and replace it with the 13"x4", since the guest bathroom's interior surface area is only 60sqft. Then go to Home Depot and get 150sqft of regular 3"x6" subway tile for the master bath, of which they'll have plenty, and at a decent price, which they did. So we are doing that, and it's turning out really nice. Thanks, Moses!
In addition to all this, in drawing up plans for this project with our architect Craig, we somehow completely forgot to account for a built-in shampoo shelf in the master bath shower, a feature we'd really been looking forward to having in there. So we had to hastily frame one in at the last minute, and luckily got it in there JUST in time for Moses to start covering it with the requisite Hardie backer board. In case you don't know, Hardie is just like drywall, but stronger and more water resistant.
So many considerations, just with the tile issue. I haven't even mentioned the gigantic headache that was the Plumbing Top Out Inspection - that should probably have its own post.
