I will run out of discontinued tiles - Tile Advice

[SteveCW]

Hello, this is my first post so here goes, advice needed. It was decided that I should renovate the shower cubicle, it started with just a new shower mixer as the last one was only hot, it turned into a bit of a Pandora’s box resulting in going back to the stud frame, replacing the floor, re-routing copper pipes and fitting a new tray and then boarding out with Marmox boards, I then tanked it with a few heavy coats of tanking fluid.
I calculated I would need 87 tiles and found a nice discounted batch of four boxes of 25 plus four or five loose, I decided this should be enough based on several different calculators and adding around 10%. Once all the prep was done regarding centre lines and batoning I started tiling off a baton lining up the existing pattern and fitted the tiles from the first box, 2 were broken in the box, I opened up the second box and a further nine were broken, I then decided to open the last two boxes and a further 10 were chipped or had corners missing! It now dawned on me that I may not have enough tiles, I will be able to salvage cuts from some if not all of the damaged and broken ones so it will be close.
Advice on where to look for more of the same, the tile warehouse I got them from thinks they are quite old so can’t get more, so can anyone think of anywhere I could look and or options to finish the job with different tiles, I guess I should have checked them all first🤦‍♂️

 

[Ben-gee]

Why have you set them out with such small cuts? It looks pretty bad to say the least…

 

[SteveCW]

Why have you set them out with such small cuts? It looks pretty bad to say the least…

Say it as it is, no need to sit on the fence. I was advised to make a centre line up the wall, I had to put a baton up to align the first tiles with the existing pattern, the cuts are quite small but it’s symmetrical.
what would your suggestion have been?

 

[SteveCW]

All finished now, I managed to use all the broken tiles and ended up with two spare whole tiles, phew.

 

[Ben-gee]

Since you ask; I would have it off centre but with equal sized cuts on alternate rows at opposite ends so it is symmetrical.
eg say your wall is 1040 and your tiles are 500
Centred you get 20/500/500/20 and 270/500/270.
My method you get 145/500/395 and 395/500/145.

 

[SteveCW]

Since you ask; I would have it off centre but with equal sized cuts on alternate rows at opposite ends so it is symmetrical.
eg say your wall is 1040 and your tiles are 500
Centred you get 20/500/500/20 and 270/500/270.
My method you get 145/500/395 and 395/500/145.

I don’t disagree, the wall was 760 the tiles 300 so I did get much as you described, off centred would have been far better and I made that decision on the other two walls, starting from the already tiled wall, it may have been better to start from the known straight edges and worked into the corner, I followed advice of various YouTube tilers and maybe should have thought about it myself. Getting a professional was out of the question as I currently don’t work, I will chalk this up to experience and thank you for your advice.

 

[Ben-gee]

Yeah no worries, you’ve made a nice job of the actual tiling by the way.
In future , I would always try to avoid slithers as they look like a mistake. Plenty of “professional” tilers do it too, blindly centring each wall regardless as “that’s what I always do”.
Trust your instincts rather than heed a load of idiots on the internet!
Good luck with finding a job. 👍