has anyone used large frame tile to look like wood panel in a shower? if so can you post examples? I want to see this in a real application ...

here’s the story of my concept

this is for a guest bathroom at a shore condo

its a standard 3x5 shower

Gonna have glass shower door no tub

and vanity will have beadboard cottage want shower to be white and vibe to be like beachy cottage alcove

What I really wanted:

My first idea was to make the shower look like a beadboard mud room style - beadboard panels floor to ceiling , white bench, shelf for stuff, and hooks all along for drying wet bathing suits .

Turns out no such long ceramic beadboard style tile, And the limited options that the very helpful people of this forum found for me don’t go all the way up the wall and aren’t ideal for shower use...everyone was super helpful and gave really great advice and research so I’m now trying a new idea taking their points into consideration and laid out some tile design for things that are available below...

( also a suggestion was silestone, I did find silestone panels I could install and try this concept...but they are expensive (still might consider...need to visit a showroom)

As an alternative concept , if not using silestone but still Inspired by the beadboard (... And which includes a fan tile that I found and love...)

I found large panel frame tiles and thought about using trim to make it look like 1/3 lower wall panels and then on upper 2/3 put a whimsical scale/fan tile....in the photo I put together examples of different trim types As options to build it up...

do you think this will look too busy with grout ?

Or once there are hooks or alcove boxes for stuff or bench seat??

I can’t decide whether I’m onto something as a cool idea or it’s going too far and trying too hard ....

(possibly another iteration of these options in my mind is to maybe use the silestone beadboard panel on the bottom 1/3 and the shell on the top but not sure what mixing silestone and tile will look like and would make cleaning awkward)

I put pictures of the current old shower , examples of beadboard showers, the sample layout of the concept, and sketch of type of cabinets in bathroom

beadboard inspiration

current old bathroom showing against panel tile for scale. Would only use one panel tile

white beadboard front vanity cabinets that will face the shower on opposing wall

my new concept to run on all 3 walls

bottom 1/3

baseboard+ panel-+ chair rail

top 2/3 to ceiling - decorative fan tile