On May 19, 4:51 pm, Tony wrote:
Thanks for such a well written reply to my post. BTW, it is Tony, not Tonu ...

Sad story of botched tile snipped...

I'll agree this sounds like a place to avoid for installation, at
least. Know nothing of them being in KS, so won't even try to comment
on that part...

On software, as others have noted, you could do some trial layouts w/
AutoCad or another layout package and get a feel for the layout.
That's certainly something that any real designer would provide the
installer -- a working layout. A real pro not provided that would
study the room and have sufficient experience to do at least a
reasonable job from that. A novice or inexperienced mechanic would do
what yours did -- start from some point, maybe considering the layout
of a particular portion and then discover he "hadn't thought of that"
on down the road. That's the sure sign you got somebody not qualified
on their own.

As for help, there was a very nice article on precisely the subject in
a recent issue of Fine Homebuilding.

Also, you may find if you're not practiced w/ a drafting program that
you could do the same thing more quickly w/ a pencil and square grid
paper with a trial runs while you're learning the ways of the software
package...