Main Bath – Shower Tile Redo

Well friends, I originally scheduled this post to go live yesterday. But then I realized it was April Fool’s Day, and you all might think this was a joke. And unfortunately, it’s not. We have to replace our main bath’s shower tile. Yes, our brand new shower tile in our brand new house…..well, almost new. We’ve been moved in for a year and a half, but that’s still considered new in my book. Anyhow, here’s the tile story in a nutshell.

Right after the shower tile was initially installed I noticed some weird grid-like marks on the tile, and I mentioned them to our general contractor.

You can kind of see them in this iPhone photo above, but you can also see that the tile isn’t “clean” in this photo. Here’s a close-up of the marks I noticed.

Do you see that grid-like mark in this photo up above the shower control? These marks were all over the tiles in different areas. And this grid-like mark pattern matches the pattern on the underside of the tiles. And I was told this was common due to the way tile is stacked in boxes for shipping. Even though I’ve never come across a box of tile with underlayment marks that didn’t easily dust off, I was reassured that these tile marks were no big deal and would be easily removed with a good porcelain tile cleaner.

So, I let it go. Because while I’ve done some tile projects, I’m definitely not a professional.

Our builders had the house cleaned before we moved in, but on move-in day I noticed that these marks were still all over our tile. And so began our year and a half long journey, which has ended in us having to completely replace the tile.

In working with both our builder and the tile company that our builder recommend to us (where we sourced all of the tile that we used in the house), we had 5 or 6 different crews come out and try to clean these marks off of our tile.

I myself, on recommendations, tried white vinegar – Kaboom – and numerous other tile cleaners. Nothing worked. I tried to convey to our builder and tile dealer that these marks didn’t seem to be on the tile but rather in the tile.

The last attempt at cleaning was done by a crew the tile dealer sent to our home. They used a porcelain tile cleaner and power sander. This is the result after an 8 hour day of work.

As you can see not only were the marks still there, but the color of the tile was fading in spots after being sanded so hard.

After numerous attempts to remove the marks, the conclusion that everyone has reached is that these marks are in fact in the tile not on the tile. And they “think” that this happened because the tiles were stacked in the box while they were still wet, so that underlayment pattern sank into the tile.

Sooooooo, thankfully, our builder and the tile dealer have agreed to replace this faulty tile. And we are so grateful!

I headed back into Melcer Tile, and I selected another black tile!

Because while I wasn’t happy with the unfortunate marks on the black tile we originally chose, I really do LOVE our all-black shower!

This time around I’m going with a smaller scale tile. I’ve selected this 4 x 12 matte black tile with an uneven texture that gives it somewhat of a handmade look. (Similar to this.)

And I initially considered having the tiles laid in a vertical offset pattern like this.

But I also kind of loved this horizontal look that felt fresh and modern.

But ultimately I chose a combination of the two, and I can’t wait to see it installed! I’m once again using black grout because I love that tone-on-tone look, and black grout is so easy to keep clean in a bathroom!

I’m really glad to be on the tail end of this unfortunate situation. I’ve wanted to add a backsplash to the vanity wall, but I’ve been delaying that because I’ve known that replacing the shower tile might be necessary.

It feels really good to have this moving in the right direction, so I can focus on finishing up all the other details I have planned for this space.

Looking forward to sharing the new shower tile soon-ish! The tile layout has me so excited!