Tile cutting and dark grout finish

Hello,
We recently bought a house and have refurbished it. We have ripped out and redone 3 bathrooms, two are fine, one looks terrible. There have been so many issues but the main one I need to understand is this;
The architect advised that the walls should be metro tiles, herringbone pattern with dark grout half way up the walls and up to the ceiling at the shower. It is straight all the way round but with the tiles cut and the dark grout on you could see there were cracks and between that and the edging it looks awful. They then redid it using a different, more expensive machine to cut the tiles, and new edging. I think it now looks worse. Is it the design that is at fault, or is it tiling work done. Was there a better way to do this? What would you recommend?
Pics attached.

Dark grout with white tiles will always show up imperfections (to be polite) that would never stand out with a light grout. Every small chip or rough edge will be highlighted by the dark grout. So unless the tiling is 100% it will show. It's a shame as I'm guessing those are glazed ceramic tiles? In which case with the the right blade and a cork block with some 120grit all those cuts could have been clean and crisp. On the plus side they look pretty flat without lippage. You may be able to tidy some areas up with a Stanley blade taking excess out.. Etc. Or get the original tiler to do it. Have used anthracite and black with white tiles in the past and can look effective but prefer to not go as dark now, using either a cement or London grey (all Mapei).

I reckon it would of looked much better with a silver grey grout and maybe if the edges were grouted again could hide some of the imperfections black is a pain takes soo much cleaning

That's true every time I use a dark grout my hands look like a mechanic's that's just stripped an engine down!

J K Tiling Cornwall said:

That's true every time I use a dark grout my hands look like a mechanic's that's just stripped an engine down!

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Yeah it’s not good lol I done 66m2 of metro tiles recently and black grout ruined 20 sponges about 30 microfibre cloths and grout floats

That's quite an area would drive most people insane! To be honest I think they look really good with the dark grout in Kitchens.. really easy to maintain. Some tiles are better quality than others.. sometimes you get that slight wavey edge on the glaze and all kinds of imperfections. Have had bowed cheap metro tiles before, nightmare.

J K Tiling Cornwall said:

That's quite an area would drive most people insane! To be honest I think they look really good with the dark grout in Kitchens.. really easy to maintain. Some tiles are better quality than others.. sometimes you get that slight wavey edge on the glaze and all kinds of imperfections. Have had bowed cheap metro tiles before, nightmare.

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Yeah I agree it does look smart with black grout also worth spending and extra few quid a meter of metros they were office toilets I tiled

J K Tiling Cornwall said:

Dark grout with white tiles will always show up imperfections (to be polite) that would never stand out with a light grout. Every small chip or rough edge will be highlighted by the dark grout. So unless the tiling is 100% it will show. It's a shame as I'm guessing those are glazed ceramic tiles? In which case with the the right blade and a cork block with some 120grit all those cuts could have been clean and crisp. On the plus side they look pretty flat without lippage. You may be able to tidy some areas up with a Stanley blade taking excess out.. Etc. Or get the original tiler to do it. Have used anthracite and black with white tiles in the past and can look effective but prefer to not go as dark now, using either a cement or London grey (all Mapei).

Click to expand...

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J K Tiling Cornwall said:

Dark grout with white tiles will always show up imperfections (to be polite) that would never stand out with a light grout. Every small chip or rough edge will be highlighted by the dark grout. So unless the tiling is 100% it will show. It's a shame as I'm guessing those are glazed ceramic tiles? In which case with the the right blade and a cork block with some 120grit all those cuts could have been clean and crisp. On the plus side they look pretty flat without lippage. You may be able to tidy some areas up with a Stanley blade taking excess out.. Etc. Or get the original tiler to do it. Have used anthracite and black with white tiles in the past and can look effective but prefer to not go as dark now, using either a cement or London grey (all Mapei).

Click to expand...

J K Tiling Cornwall said:

Dark grout with white tiles will always show up imperfections (to be polite) that would never stand out with a light grout. Every small chip or rough edge will be highlighted by the dark grout. So unless the tiling is 100% it will show. It's a shame as I'm guessing those are glazed ceramic tiles? In which case with the the right blade and a cork block with some 120grit all those cuts could have been clean and crisp. On the plus side they look pretty flat without lippage. You may be able to tidy some areas up with a Stanley blade taking excess out.. Etc. Or get the original tiler to do it. Have used anthracite and black with white tiles in the past and can look effective but prefer to not go as dark now, using either a cement or London grey (all Mapei).

Click to expand...

Thanks, that’s really helpful, I think you are right, they are ceramic glazed, they did get a better machine to cut them. We thought, given that some of the tiles were fine, that the second time they would be able to make them all smooth when they cut them but this hasn’t happened. the builder isnt keen to have his tiler redo it a third time and to be honest we arent that keen to get them back in. Every time they are in they create another problem when fixing things so for example we now have two cracked tiles and a chipped tile that also need fixing. I hope I can find another tiler who would be happy to sort it!!
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Joshjupp said:

I reckon it would of looked much better with a silver grey grout and maybe if the edges were grouted again could hide some of the imperfections black is a pain takes soo much cleaning

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I think in hindsight, yes. The whole bathroom is black and white and there are different black and white tiles on the floor (also covered in the dark grout that need a specialist cleaner to take off) so hoping I can get it fixed!!
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Joshjupp said:

Yeah I agree it does look smart with black grout also worth spending and extra few quid a meter of metros they were office toilets I tiled View attachment 111495 View attachment 111496 View attachment 111497

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That looks like a very long but great job!! The spacing in the tiles also looks great where in our bathroom some of the spacing looks thicker than others.
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What are your thoughts on the sealant and the way the trim is?

In reply to the OP, from the one internal corner I can see trim should have been mitred, not sure how they finished the external corners on the window? Trim also looks a little too wide. Silicon sealant doesn't look too bad, but the same with tiling if not 100% will really show with the contrast. Hope you find someone who would be willing to rectify it