I had subway tile installed over a standard size tub. The tiler used 2 x 6 bullnose for the vertical boarder rather than maintaining the staggered look by using 3 x 6 bullnose short as I initially intended. Is there a most common approach for the vertical subway boarder around a tub?
I am going to assume the border is a 2x6 turned vertically. Normally a border tile is used and the grout lines rarely line up because of size. However, if you instructed the setter how you wanted it to look. That is what should be done. I belive you are paying him not the other way around. They do have tiles with the bullnose on the short side(left or right). Find a new tiler. Ask for money back. Stand your ground. I build new homes for a living. This kind of crap drives me nutz! Good luck.
There is no particular common approach for tiling a vertical border with bullnose pieces. It is usually just personal preference. Sometimes people will not even use a bullnose piece for the border, they will just pick out some type of decorative piece and use it for the border. Assuming that you used a ceramic gloss white or black (most common colors in subway tiles) , there is usually a wide variety of sizes available in bullnose peice sizes. It is NOT Uncommon for your border pieces to be a different size than the rest of your subway tile if the size picked finishes the tile work off and ties it together in an interesting way. If however you were prompted to ask this question because you asked a Tile Installer to use the 3x6 size and he refused stating that he was using the most common method, then you are most likely dealing with an installer that did it a way other than you specified because he(or she) did not feel like taking the time to make extra cuts it would require for your size to work... The only exception to my last sentence would be if there is something structural that I am not aware of. Hope this helps.
