Bathroom gut & rebuild.

[CheeseSteak]

Doing my first complete bathroom remodel at a rental home I own. Have the new tub in place and want to move on to prepping the walls for tile. Watched many videos & read reference books and have been convinced to use 1/2"-thick cement board and all of recommended seam tape, seam mortar, waterproofing compound, fasteners, etc. What I have yet to see is any advice on where to place the borders. Example, the end where the faucets poke out will be flush with a drywall-covered wall. I expect to run a little past the side edge of the tub to better protect the wall from water - perhaps by a full 4.25" square tile. Do I have to predict EXACTLY where I expect the tiles to end and place the backer accordingly? Some FAQs deal with painting cem board but seems like trouble. It is OK if the cem board is a little short forcing the last tile in the row to overlap the seam? Also, any parameters on how high up the wall the tiles should go? And the same question: OK if the top-most tile partially spans the seam?
Thanks

 

[Silentrunning]

I like to run the tiles as close to the ceiling as possible without cutting a row. The way I did the tiles around the faucet was to start installing the tiles until I got to the highest row I could before the faucet and handles. I then placed the next row up and marked the back of the tiles thru the access panel behind the shower. I have a set of ceramic drill bits going up to 1.5” I drilled out the tiles where marked and installed them. I then remounted the plumbing fixtures and was on my way.

 

[CheeseSteak]

Thanks Silentrunning. I have 2 baths in my current home to gather ideas from. The hall bath's tiles are well short of the ceiling and the shower spout does not poke thru the tile. The master bath has a large shower only and the tile in it goes up higher than it does in the hall bath and the shower head fixture DOES poke thru a tile. For this rental I was leaning towards having the tile's height be below the shower spout to avoid the extra work as I do not have a lot of practice laying and cutting tiles.