In our last home, we used Brecchia Oniciata marble slabs on the tub deck, which was in the middle of the bathroom and open on 3 sides. I sat on the marble all the time and it had a candelabra and bubble bath bottles on it as well...no problems whatsoever. In our almost-complete new construction home, we went with Crema Marfil slabs on the tub deck, shower seat, shower shelf niches and shower thresholds. No experience with cracking and they're completely installed, so as Bill says, I don't think there will be any problems since it's set already. Don't know about etching yet, but we won't be placing any items on the shower seat anyway. It's personal preference, but I would opt to do slab in any material over tile for the shower seat, for both looks and comfort. We had emperador marble tiles on the tub deck and shower seat in a previous home and although it was nice, I do love the slabs so much better. YMMV!

Whoa there missy! What exactly is the problem with your mixing valve?

What color is the wainscotting and the paneling? If it's white/cream then I could see the bathroom being just fine with the PO. You are right, there is not much difference in LRV (PO is 35 vs. 41 for DB.) A couple of suggestions: 1) find a floor lamp and extension cord and drag the lamp into the bathroom to check out the color to see if you do like it. 2) If it turns out to be too dark for you, have wide stripes painted in a lighter version of the PO. Use a glossy sheen and the lighter color will really pop out. Another bonus of staying with the PO is that you will have one fewer color/can you have to store for touch-ups :) Good luck!

sombreuill (so nice to see you pop in on my thread), that's the way we're going to go. After much discussion and research, we're keeping the existing kitchen door and addressing the jam rot only. I talked to a supplier about purchasing a custom made new rot resistant jam for the TT door (their old doors were an inch taller than all other brands). And then I talked to the owner of the window contracting company who suggested that since the rot was minimal, another option was to remove the affected wood, fill with epoxy and sand it smooth. Once painted, we'll never know that it was damaged and there would be no reason for further damage to occur (the leak that caused the rot happened years ago and has since been addressed). This is a cost effective solution that won't delay the exterior or interior work so we're quite happy about it. This company has an excellent rep (BBB, contractor's board, Angie's List, Yelp, etc, plus two suppliers told us that, hands down, this is *the* company to work with. Their work is excellent). They are conscientious about making sure that all installs are to code and won't cause water issues down the road. The amount of flashing, wrapping, etc that they are adding to our windows and doors is more than twice what our initial install had 21 yrs ago. You should have heard them mumbling about how poorly the house was flashed and how amazed they are that they haven't uncovered any dry rot (so thankful for that but it could have been a different story if we hadn't replaced the failed LP siding when we did.). Thanks for the brand recs, ak0402. I'll keep them in mind should we ever need to buy a new door.