Must be an edging piece that goes with the tile?

My bathroom tile had this

We are just finishing a Guest Bath remodel and did our Master Bath earlier in the year. We specified what type/color trim we wanted. Was that done here as well, and your tiler went against your specifications? Did you detail ahead of time what type/color you wanted?

They should have done a gray one to better blend with the tile, it is probably too late to pull it out and replace but I don't know that for sure, I would ask though!

If you paint your walls white, it will look okay.

@Lisa The edge pieces only came in size 1 1/2“ x 5“. The tile itself is 2 1/2“ x 5“. The contractor, the tile pro, and my husband seemed perplexed as to how to handle the edging. I don’t quite understand why. So the tile guy suggested a Schlueter trim, which I thought would be OK because we had a good experience using Schlueter in our master bathroom. See pictures below. In that installation the Schlueter is very non-intrusive. I thought this would be similarly low-profile. Instead, it looks very plasticky and cheap to me. Can I have it painted? Should I request that it be removed and replaced with the proper edge piece? I understand that would be a lot of labor and more money spent on materials, which my husband is not happy about contemplating. But this just looks tacky to me.

@houssaon we are planning to paint the walls Sherwin Williams “Nuance” — a greigy white. What do you think? Should we go whiter? My “white” trim color throughout the house is Valspar’s “creme fraiche” (basically same as Sherwin Williams’ “Greek Villa.”

Edging pieces are usually not the same size as the tile, since you want it to make a border around the field tile. I'm surprised the tile pro didn't know how to handle the edges pieces ... but if he is younger he might just not see it often, since Schlueter has become the primary edging for most jobs. I hate it myself, but these days you find less and less tile lines offering companion pieces.

I think that will look good or you can go a step lighter with SW Spare White.

I would find out if a trim like you had in the other bath could be use. It seems there is a depth to the tile that the edging is covering.

What color is your grout going to be?? Often we try to get a color that will be close to the grout so it looks just like a grout line.

I am not a tile expert, but this is in there now - not sure how you could possibly do anything else.

The one on the white tile looks fine because it goes with the hardware on the glass. I think the white on gray is jarring because of the contrast. I'm not too sure about that outside corner though - there is a schluter specially made for that.

Goodness - let's hope some of the brilliant tile minds stop in to help!

And Chispa is right, many tiles we sell do not have any sort of bullnose or pencil edge. UGH!

Ask your tile guy for some of that trim so you can paint it and see how you like it.

@debbi Washburn our grout will be Prism “warm gray.” It won’t match the schluter 😕. I’m wondering if they’re planning to put up another layer of drywall above the tile around the bath? That would help hide most of the schluter.

Matte metal (e.g., nickel) would have looked better here. Not sure you can fix after the fact, though, as it is part of the thinset under the edge tiles. Paint may be your best bet.

Did you plan to drywall that area?

I admittedly am also a bit confused as to why they didn't go with the bullnose piece. There would be a couple of awkward cuts as it is sized to go over a set of two (if you look at wow's website I think that statement will make sense). If it were me and you decide to pay for the materials and labor to have it redone, I would buy the bullnose pieces and have them installed with that. A few weird corner cuts is better then the schluter trim in my opinion.

IMO a silver schluter trim would ahve been much better and IMO bullnose only works in a vert traditional bathroom I need to see this from mmuch firther back since from what I see too much different tiles trying to work together too. I am confused as to the reason for the white for sure.

@DoodleD, I know!! I kept saying to my husband “miter the damn tile!” It’s not rocket science. Ironically our bath fixtures will be matte/satin nickel so yes, I imagined a matte metal schluter too but our contractor said that’s too modern for this tile and I trusted him. He suggested white schluter and I figured he must know best 🤦‍♀️

Oh no no! Never take design advice from a contractor. Never!

It is the rare contractor that has the design gene!

@Michael Wilson- wow! (No pun intended!) looks gorgeous! How I wish I insisted on the edge trim pieces…

I would try to spray paint the schluter silver using spray paint, just be careful to tape it all off really well so you don’t get overspray on the tile.

What Michael Wilson's photo showed is just a matching bullnose tile ... I can't believe your contractor didn't know how to deal with that ... makes you wonder what else he doesn't know? I hope his water-proofing knowledge is better than his tiling knowledge.

If it’s not too late to change the grout to white and paint the walls white it may just blend. But hard to say without knowing ALL of the other finishes.

I’m so sorry this happened. I would be upset too. There are a few ideas here, so your husband has to bite the money bullet to get this looking better. One, find out if there is a bullnose matching tile to yours. That would be the best solution. And definitely try to paint a piece of the schluter to see if that will be an option. Last, if the schluter can be removed and there are no matching tiles, change to the silver schluter.
Lesson learned? Never ask a contractor for design help.

TBH, I’m not familiar with the Schulter edging product, but looking at the photos I’m thinking it might look a lot better when the tile is grouted — with a slightly lighter grout than you planned on using — and the drywall has a final mudding and sanding. Have you considered doing Venetian plaster? Zellige tile is (old) traditional and gives a handcrafted look. It is certainly not modern, so it would have made more sense to do the bullnose edge tiles. But what’s done is done. If you build up a (white) plaster finish, the edging will not be so noticeable. Plaster would make sense with zellige tile.

‘

An update: we’re going to suck it up and pay to have another layer of drywall installed to leave very little schluter edging showing. Adding $1k coat to the project 😣 you live, you learn. I’ll post pics once it’s done.

Any updates on this? You can also paint the schluter piece the color of your wall. Mask it along the grout line and paint it with your walls.

Sorry for late update! We added the extra layer of drywall so it’s totally flush andI would t have done it any other way (but wish the issue had been thought through in advance so we didn’t have to eat the extra cost!)

hey the 80’s called…
I spoke with Shluter rep today for a similar prob. I think all the trim looks like crap everywhere. And schluter offers bad color matches if it is appropriate. The rep said you can only take and paint/etc the silver trim. Not happening to match Moen brushed gold. Now I’m about to find someone to basic miter and polish some flush edges like I asked for twice. No one wants to work now days.
This company is raking it in for other stuff but this is freaking hideous!