Hi Guys, Looking for some tile recommendations that I can lay myself. Had some really nice results for a nursery I did about 2 years ago using a dark cherry floor tile, but that room was a blank slate so it was easy to get everything to match. Our new house has a 2 story great room with fireplace. It has some nasty silver/grey/black carpet (might as well add yellow in there thanks to the dogs). The walls are all this grey/blue color. The room borders the kitchen with about 10' of open space which is floored with maple hardwood - very light in color. I've tried every color tile I can think of, and don't really like any of them. Any suggestions on what you guys think could work would be appreciated. It's definitely a challenge trying to find something that goes well with the light maple hardwoods and also the blue grey color of the walls. Here's a few pictures: [IMG]https://photos.zillowstatic.com/p_f/ISx7ghdxsy9zmo0000000000.jpg[/IMG] The actual carpet is darker than it looks in the above image so I figured I would include this image from my office which borders the great room and has the same carpet: [IMG]https://photos.zillowstatic.com/p_f/ISxnwgsarx7ono0000000000.jpg[/IMG] Not the best image, but you can see the lighter color of the maple in this image and a bit of the carpet... [IMG]https://photos.zillowstatic.com/p_f/ISp1e5vqoq12no0000000000.jpgI[/IMG] Would you guys run tile symmetrically or staggered? With the wood planks or against the wood planks? What are a few color options...I just can't think of anything that would go good between a light yellow and bluish grey, so I'm guessing something neutral? Anyways, looked at everything Lowes has so far, and haven't found one thing I liked. Any suggestions are helpful :)

I have demolished my bathroom and shower recently and have started to put it all back together. I used backer board for the walls in the shower, rolled plastic for the shower liner. I then place a mud deck on top of the shower liner to hold the tile that will be place as the shower floor. However, the mud deck seems to have expanded and/or shrunk in certain areas. Is it possible to add more mud to the already dried mud decking material. Any help in this would be greatly appreciated.