The lighting is more of an issue than the tile.

What do you mean?

I'd do white on the back wall... Avalanche

will you have a glass door?

the door will distort the color a bit as well

My eye went right to it, luckily it's a bathroom and not a kitchen backsplash.

We will have a glass door

I do feel like it’s more noticeable in photos somehow

I wonder what it would look like to grout in two different colors. It would be a busier look, but it would look intentional rather than looking like you were trying to match and missed.

Another thought. The light bouncing off the back tiles does make them appear lighter/brighter than the side walls. What are your tiles made of? Are they both tiled in the same finish? Perhaps the back tiles could be honed of the gloss so that they don't reflect the light so much and therefore appear more subtle, less shiny and therefore slightly darker. May be a good question for your tile contractor if that is do-able, if you want.

In the end, I'm betting your shower door will have a glare itself and therefore obscure the issue. I wouldn't worry too much if you can't fix it.

The back wall is glossy. The side walls are honed.

No different than when you paint stripes of flat and eggshell finishes on a wall. Same paint color, but the different finish is what will give the striped look on the walls.

What are we supposed to be looking at? I didn't notice anything until folks said they saw it immediately, so I looked again. To me, it seems maybe some of the tiles on the back upper left corner appear darker than the others. But initially I thought it was from the shadows.

But then I'm reading about the back versus the sides, and I don't know if I notice anything with that.

If it's the back wall that I'm thinking, then I think a white grout would make it more noticeable. I'd stick with a light gray and maybe it will blend between the two.

Either way, it's a hard decision to redo it all. I have some issues with two with of our showers that bug me 5 years later. Maybe only 1-2 things would I have redone and they both would have been a lot less work & money than your issue. They are all more of "I wish we had gotten it right" than "I wish we would have redone all that work".

just keep your eyes on one section when you shower haha

@Amie Ah. Then that is the real issue rather than dye lots, I suspect. If you can't have the back wall honed, can you have the sides coated with a gloss and then see what happens? Not sure if that is possible.

Matte tiles NEVER match polished ones.

this is the answer. honestly I didn't even notice that the color seemed different, just that they have different finishes. it looks like an intentional choice to me. I would grout and move on.

With so much glare from lighting and shadows from skylight etc I can’t even tell difference dye lots. As far as mixing matte and glossy, it’s a matter of preference.

if you hadn't have said anything, I wouldn't have noticed. it's not bad.

once you get everything done, the flooring done, the glass doors in, I doubt you'll even see it

I'd be more concerned about his tile layout. He did a nice job w/the herringbone, so what happened w/the larger tiles?

why the sliver cut at the very top and the cut tiles at the bottom? if he wouldn't have cut that bottom row as thin as he did, he could have eliminated the sliver top row.

Poor planning around the niche too. he should have made it slightly larger so that he would not have had to cut the tiles all around it

you see my blue lines around it? only a few inches and it could have been so much nicer looking

this one is mine. before the walls went up, I measured exactly where the niche would fall between the set tiles. it's simple math.

sorry, but this was completely avoidable.

this is one of my biggest pet peeves w/tile setters who can't take a little extra time and do the math when building the shower.

few examples. you see how the 'box' fits fully between the bottom and top tiles so that no slim cuts have to made around it? like yours?

this one is beautifully done. fully between the upper and lower tiles w/no " L-sliver cuts"

Beth. Thank you for this feedback. It’s very helpful. I see what you’re saying. We plan to redo another bathroom very soon and I will definitely keep this in mind when the tile guy starts!! Tiling is such a finicky art isn’t it?

Fnicky? Possbly. Thai is why I prefer simple.