Excuse my duh-ness but i'm having difficulty trying to follow whats going on here. Are these two photos an exact replica of your house and pool ? If not a hasty sketch with dimensions could help a lot. By kitchen wall do you mean the wall behind the bar ? And where is the pool wall ? Are you considering the covered area as being "inside" ? Sorry for all those questions lol Sometimes when you have a design problem you need to turn it inside out or on it's head. If you can't beat it maybe embrace it by making a feature of it : i.e. contrast by having the lightest colored pool surround and a great blue or tile inside and under the overhang, something that will echo the water color ? If you have a great covered area as in photo you'll most likely be spending a lot of time there and it could be soothing to be able to sometimes retire into a darker inside. In my book, 10M isn't small and also contrasting two floor colors doesn't necessarily make a space seem smaller and confined and may in fact even open it up. Could it be that you've thought yourself into a box here ? Sometimes one needs to give it all a good shake up and see how it resettles.

I do not have any tiles in my current house but if you think about grout discolouring and looking bad.... then I think that might answer your question. My thought - the less grout the better.

Hi All, We are updating our bathrooms and I need to choose the color of the tiles around the vanity, shower and bath (including wall and bath boxing). One of the bathrooms has dark brown ceramic tiles, timber ceiling and brown timber wainscoting. The other two bathrooms have brown timber floors and neutral colored walls/ceiling. The light in all bathrooms is low to medium. I have chosen white vanity tops, with white basins and chrome taps. Do you think it would be too much white if all the tiles were white? Is there such a thing as too much white? Also what type of tiles are the easiest to install? Thanks

I wouldn't do skirtings . I'd do the floor tile for '1 tile' up the wall ( assume they are 200 x 200 or 300 x 300 -- cut them if 400 or 600 ) . Personally , I'd probably even do the 'silver' tiled areas in that 1 height darker tile too , as it would make the whole room look more 'level' , but thats up to you and your tiler .