Hi. Type in shower niche in the search box in Houzz to see examples. Often have feature tile on back. Here is a two tone.

I haven't seen this done before, but was wondering what the practical reason for doing it? Think carefully about the corner junction between the two types of tiles, especially if they are different thicknesses, and be sure you know how the tiler will deal with the outside corner issue. Make sure you have a good tiler.

Best of luck,

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House Calls

The first photo from Kate is the only one that has the design I'm looking for. Except in my case the wall and the back of the niche would be the same tile, only the niche's edges would be different.

Dr Retro - The reason for doing this is we are using large format glass tile with a pattern in it. We have to cut the glass for the inside edge and you'll be able to look "into" the glass edge and it may not be the best outcome. So the idea is to put porcelain tile on the inside edge (like Kate's first photo) to eliminate that as an issue.

The tile's pattern comes from a thin film applied to the back of the glass. Even if the glass is cut perfectly, that film will probably be lightly fragmented. If the glass were a solid color we could paint the edge (did this in a different bathroom) but that won't work in this case. So the easy solution is to use a porcelain tile for the edge of the niche.

People often use a completely different tile for the entire back of the niche. Here I'm only changing the tile on the edge so I don't think it's a huge deal. Kate's first example looks fine but I'd like to see a few more like this if anyone has examples.

I’d match colour of porcelain tile to the glass tile if you can. You could also use an aluminum tiling edge strip depending on width and your colours.

Here’s some more examples

This time only your last photo has a different color for the inside edge of the niche. But it's really more of a ledge so not a perfect example of what I'm doing.

It's really hard to find examples of what I plan to do; like Dr. Retro said, it's not commonly done.

This is basically what I plan to do - one tile for the wall and back of the niche and a second tile for the inside edge. But I won't have a giant frame like this, just a standard Schluter Jolly profile.

This is another example of the same concept but they have two tiles on the wall/back of the niche with a different tile on the edge. Like the example above, this one also has a giant frame. I don't understand these thick frames, I think it looks terrible.