"Do we wait for the tile, or use something else?"
That came in Wednesday at 10:43 in the morning, from a builder I work with a lot. Four more landed behind it before the week was out. Here they are in the order they arrived, answered about the way I answered them the first time, which was fast and with a number in it wherever I had one to give.
The shower wall tile is back ordered until mid October. Do we wait or substitute?
Substitute, and change the size rather than the finish.
Three options were on the table. Wait until October. Take the same tile in a 24 by 48 format, which was sitting in the warehouse. Or take the same size we specified in a matte finish, also available.
I took the larger format, because finish and size are not the same class of decision. Sheen is what you actually see. It changes how the tile takes light at seven in the morning and at nine at night, it changes how the tile sits against the plumbing finish, and it was chosen against everything else in that room. Swap it and you have quietly redesigned the wall.
Size changes the grout layout, which is a real change but one you can draw before you commit to it. On a wet wall, a bigger tile means fewer grout lines to keep clean. That is an improvement, not a concession.
Two things to check before you say yes. Whether the larger format costs more in material or labor, because big tile is heavy and sometimes takes a second installer. And whether the vendor will hold the original pricing, which in this case he did.
Six weeks of waiting is never six weeks on one shower. It is the tile crew's whole calendar, and then the glass, and then the punch list. Substitutions are where a designer and a builder need to be talking daily, which is most of what full service design looks like from the inside.
Is there an option other than hex on the shower floor? The grout is impossible to keep clean.
Yes on the shape. No on the size.
Shower floor tile has to bend. The pan slopes toward the drain in two directions at once and the tile has to follow it, which is why shower floors are mosaics in the first place. My rule is nothing over three inches in any direction. Go bigger and the tile cannot sit flat on two planes, so it either cracks or the corners lift a year in.
Inside three inches you have room to move. Penny round, small square, a two by two, elongated hex, basket weave.
But the honest answer to a grout concern is not fewer grout lines, because you cannot have fewer down there. It is grout that does not show what it collects. Pick a mid-tone at the start instead of a bright white you will be scrubbing for fifteen years.
Are sconces on either side of the mirror unrealistic because of the wall angle?
Not unrealistic, just more than it sounds like. That is four fixtures instead of two plus the electrical to land four boxes at the right height, and the height matters far more than the count. Plan for it now and let it be the line item that gives if the budget needs somewhere to give later.
Glass shelves or wood shelves above the bar?
Wood, and I answered a style question with a cleaning answer.
Glass shelving in a bar picks up a film you can see from across the room. Wood takes all of that and shows none of it. In a basement bar that gets used on Saturdays, that is the argument.
The rest of that bar came together the same practical way. Black painted lowers with a light countertop over them, so the counter reads as relief rather than one more dark surface. Brass hardware picked after the appliance finish was settled rather than before it. The pool room next door is already a deep navy, so the bar has to sit beside it without arguing with it. And the flooring is the existing vinyl plank carried straight through, out of boxes already sitting in storage from the first install.
We love this rug but not the grid pattern woven into it.
Then you are not shopping for a different rug. You are shopping for that rug without the grid, which is a much smaller problem.
I emailed the rep the same morning and asked for a comparable construction in a moss tone with nothing patterned in the weave, so the two can sit side by side on the floor. That is a two day errand rather than starting over.
One condition: order the physical sample. A flatweave photographed on a white studio background will lie to you about both color and texture, every time.
None of these took more than a few minutes to answer, which is sort of the point. If you have one sitting in a draft you have not sent to anybody, whether you are in Rochester Hills or Lake Orion or anywhere else we work, send it over.
