New bathroom - two questions - one about tiles, one about bath taps and showers

[spicemonster]

Question 1 - Tiles. At the moment, the tiles in my bathroom go up to the top of the shower above 3 side of the bath and then are about shoulder height behind the sink and loo (which are along one wall). The other wall just has a radiator on it and is untiled. Question is - when I redo the bathroom (which is going to be tiled in travertine), is it alright if I just put tiles where they are currently? Or do you think I need to tile it right up to the ceiling? It's going to double the price of the tiles but I don't know if those really big tiles look odd if you stop halfway up the wall.

Question 2 - Bath taps/shower mixers. This is probably a bit thick but all the bath taps with showers seem to have showers which are clearly designed to be used for handheld only, rather than put on a stick on the wall as they have tiny heads. So can you just unscrew those and replace with a bigger showerhead (which seems a bit of a waste) or can you get the taps with just the fitting for the shower? I'm in the basement so pressure is fine so don't need a separate shower.

Not sure what is teh "right" thing to do re tiles but I think some wall is nice so you can change teh colour.

My old house had one of teh telephone type bath tap/shower things with a thing on the wall to rest it in. I suppose it might have been a smallish head (?) but it was a great shower so think the pressure is more important.

Thanks Tinker - that is a very good point re the redecorating. Also I think that an entirely indoor bathroom (which mine is) might feel a bit like it should be a wet room if the tiles go right up the walls.

I have found some taps now with a decent shower too. The ones I was looking at have really small heads seriously - like the size of a mobile phone which just doesn't seem right to me.

basically tiling where there are already tiles is fine, tiling where there arent tiles is fine, but not tiling where there have been tiles will probably entail replastering - so you should be fine. personally with big modern tiles would go all the way up but keep some wall for a paint colour like you have at the mo.

Thanks HerHonesty - that's a good point. There is some odd high tiling in one place where I don't want it but it's only about 1 square metre (and I'm going to have a 80x60 mirror over most of it) but I guess I will have to have it plastered under there.

Gosh there's so much to think of it's a bit scary