The tiles will have been laid edge to edge in the tile shop because it looks very impressive. They are looking to sell the product after all. They should have advised you better though!
:mad2:This reminds me of a job I did a few years ago. The client was adamant that he wanted no joints in the tiling (20x20 porcelain tiles), because the shop had them laid out like that.
I explained the reasons that this wasn't the correct way to tile, and refused to do the tiling unless I was allowed to put a space between the tiles.
He settled for a 1mm gap in the end, and with the rectified edges it was about 3mm when it was finished.
The tile shops could do us a big favour by having the proper set-up when displaying tiles and having a good amount of information to hand.
Although a lot of porcealin tiles have rectified/mitred edges, they still need a gap to put the grout into. Also it's good practice to use a SPF grout or a 2 part flexi grout as this bonds to the tiles and allows for a certain degree of movement.
