[Richard]

As originally conceived the marble tile on the wall was going to go in "dry stacked"  without grout or grout lines. That didn't work out so good due to minor imperfections in the marble bricks in both dimension and thickness. I knew that with minor cracks and slightly protruding lippage that those were areas not suitable for a shower. 

Well what to do now? What to do now is why the completion post is SO far after the demolition posts. It wasn't much of a problem, although a bit messy, to grind the tiles down to a even surface. I used a side grinder and a 6 inch diamond grinder that people surface grind concrete with. Then, I bought a special polisher that feeds water to the center and uses diamond grit pad to smooth the surface. I figured it would be a bit tougher than wet sanding a car, but how tough could it be? I started with 50 grit pads, moved to 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3000. Each progression was about four hours of holding the grinder on the wall with a bit of water splashing about. After 3000 grit, the marble was supposed to shine like a mirror according to U tube. 

It didn't. 

So, I did the last couple of grits again, thinking I didn't spend enough time. It still didn't shine, but boy do I have some arms by now. 

I bought some 10,000 grit pads. 

No shine. 

I tried 5000 grit wet dry paper, no shine
Car buffing compound, no shine.
Wax, shine but pits in surface. 
Epoxy, on a test tile of course, yucky. 

Finally I found a supplier for Marble polishing paste. It was expensive and stinky, but holy cow does it work. 

So here is the final product, and the pic that is NSFW. Pardon the tape while adhesive for the trim cures. 

[attachment=5505]

I have no idea why the pictures are sideways, they are upright on my computer.