Great advice!

Hi Micshak, No, you're not argumentative at all - your frustrated and understandably angry about your experience and are coming from that place. I didn't say that there weren't minimums, I said that rectified tiles allowed finer than traditional grout lines. Happily for me, I've had a similar issue to Stacey and were fortune to have great building team who ensured that my problem was fixed as soon as I raised it with them and they covered fixing the issue and resulting damages from their pocket - it wasn't even a conversation topic - what I got was "absolutely, yeah, that needs to be fixed, no worries" - the difference between great people and the guy you sadly got. Your story almost bought me to tears but did bring home the advice I had from more experienced family members on personally checking license and trade affiliations such as HIA and checking the trades insurances as well as being on site every day and only paying when I was happy for the job. It goes to show - just because you're a good person, doesn't mean that everyone you meet is a good person. Know that I believe that poor tradesman and badly behaved tradesman who don't produce reasonable quality work should be publicly flogged and branded because of the heartbreak, stress and financial hardship they put people through. Stacey needs to be able to give the option of having the problem fixed and the tiler/builder the chance to regain his reputation before trying to fix things yourself - despite your horrible experience, most are tradies are hardworking good people and want to do great work for you to keep good will for their business. Sadly for you anyone who is going to prohibit this man from getting work/money isn't going to do much except be background noise. Davco, the tile supplier etc aren't able to stop him from getting work - but you sure can and I'd encourage you to go after him with unrelenting vengeance) - go to the appropriate licensing board and talk to them. Go to HIA if your tiler is a member and the Fair Trading body in your state as a matter of course - they should be able to force compensation. I would threaten to get on every website, blogsite (including TrueLocal), the local paper and social media to tell as many people as you can about your experience with this tradesman naming names and showing what appalling work was done if you don't receive a refund/compensation/a first class quality fix within 14 days - and then if you're not happy follow through with the shaming and make sure he knows about it by sending him links/snapshots/clippings naming him and his business and let him know you're so upset that this will continue to be refreshed on a monthly basis until you receive satisfaction or he's out of business. If he indicated any businesses or people that would recommend him or gave you a list of previous jobs, I'd be sending letters to them (with photos and supporting correspondence) letting them know - and copying him. Builders all talk ;) Oh - and you could always do what a friend of mine did - have friends ring the gentleman in question to book work then cancel at the last minute after you've done your shame campaign siting the fact that they heard that he was a shameless, substandard tiler and their going with a more reputable tiler. Evil, but no more than than deserved. Stacey - I honestly hope you have more my experience than poor Micshak's. Let us know how you get on.

With a North facing house the sun makes the front of house quite hot but only on those few days a year when it is over 40 with no sea breeze and I love the heat so ceiling fans work for me. The back of the house is much cooler and the winds generally come from the ocean side but can be from all directions at times as we know. On the west side of the house it is only app 1m to the fence line and so the option of having the garage on that side isn't viable. Sorry I am not up on terminology so when I said the set back was 7 odd metres that is the current set back from the front of my house to the road. The council requires 3m for house and 4.5 for garages. I have been looking more at mid century modern design and I don't really like it so I am looking at ways of changing up the bland facade to disguise the fairly flat roof line. With those in the know could I add a front porch and somehow blend the roof line into my current one to look more like this style? I realise it means saving more to afford it so on top of my current budget. I am just not sure how the roof line of the porch would look at the back end (how it would attach to my roof and look from the side and back) I wouldn't want it to look like it was just stuck on at the front. Would I carry that through to back of house so end up with a witches hat roof or is there a better way you can see this working. Once again thank you for all of your input I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to help me :)

Moving the niche is not an option at this point. But I do have a question about the niche. My tile installer wants me to consider using the gray tile (same as the floor) on the inside edges of the niche. This is because the wall tile is glass and imperfections in the glass (from cutting it) will show if the glass tile is on the inside edge. How do you guys think that would look? I tried to find photos of a niche where the wall and back of the niche were one color, with the sides being a second color and I couldn't find any examples. Has anyone seen that?