I had soapstone and White Princess at my old house and we are starting demo of my new(old) house, so I am going through the thought process again of whether I can live with the marble. I like that that you have reiterated what I seem to hear on this forum--that those that want marble and go into the decision with full disclosure and info gathering, find it to be a wonderfully beautiful material. I am leaning toward marble this time, mostly because I have not found that the color of the White Princess quartzite these days to be the color that I am looking for. Thanks for adding yet another opinion--that's what I love about these boards. You hear both sides of most every material/decision.

Congratulations! No help with the choosing a fabricator, but be sure your slab is YOUR slab. Many GW members have paid in full for a particular slab that was subsequently sold to someone else who wanted the stone immediately.

In your case I'm thinking it doesn't make any difference where you live in SoCal, but could you please narrow down your location? My suggestions might be different if you live at Big Bear Lake than if you live in Heber. Sod roller is the most important thing for after the install, so you're doing well there. Prior to putting the sod down you should have bare soil that is as even as you can possibly get it. You don't want perfectly flat because you'll need it to drain, but get rid of all the low spots and high spots. Look on this forum for discussions about leveling bermuda lawns. Doing it before hand is preferable to doing it later. Assuming you don't have it perfect now, what you'll need is sand and a drag. I've used a 2x4 drag and a chain link fence drag. Both worked. Hopefully you have not rototilled the soil. If you have then just forget about leveling it now and come back in 3 years to level it. There are YouTube videos that show you how to install new sod. I would turn the sound off because most of the commentary is inane and much of it is counter productive. Just watch how they do it. If you have a machete, that will help to chop it into the curves or up against solid objects. Also ask your sod provider how to water the grass once it's installed. And also ask him how to water it after the sod is up and growing. Listen carefully to him to learn whether he knows what he's talking about. If he does not say the following, then you should ignore everything else he says. New sod should be watered lightly 3x per day for the first 3 weeks. Lightly means 5-10 minutes for an average sprinkler system. 3x per day means breakfast, lunch, and dinner times. This is to keep the roots moist without saturating the underlying soil. It needs to be moist so the roots will grow in, but not saturated. After 3 weeks, test the sod by pulling up on some corners. If it does not pull up, then the roots have begun to knit into the soil. That's great! Then you can start to back off on the frequency and go up on the watering time. Eventually (within a few months) you should be watering deeply and infrequently. Deeply means a full inch at a time. Measure that with cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. Time how long it takes YOUR sprinkler system to fill all the cans. If they do not all fill at the same time, then your sprinkler system has issues. My sprinkler system is very slow and takes a full 8 hours to fill the cans. My neighbor's system is high power and only takes 20 minutes. Every system is different. Infrequent watering means to water only once depending on several factors. All the factors basically boil down to the air temperature for most people. With temps in the 90s, water once a week. 80s (once every 2 weeks), 70s (once every 3 weeks), 60s (once every month). Improper watering is the mistake most people make when they write in here asking how to fix their lawns. Virtually every lawn guru will give you this advice, so I'm just on the bandwagon. Now that you know that, ask your grass provider and see what he says. If he gives you that exact advice, I'd be shocked, but if he gives you anything close to that, then listen to him. If not then just shoo him away and thank him for delivering the sod. SoCal and SoFla are the two spots where people simply don't want to listen to that. Everyone wants to water 1/7-inch 7 days a week. That's the worst way to water. I came from SoCal (Riverside, Downey, Pomona, Hawthorne, Huntington Beach, downtown LA, Palm Desert, and Indio). When I first joined these forums I argued long and hard about the benefits of daily watering, but I was wrong. No wonder my lawns were weedy. Get some landscaper flags to mark your sprinkler heads. When you roll down the sod avoid the sprinkler heads. Use your feet to tamp the grass down there. Ideally the pressure from your feet will be exactly the same as the pressure from the roller. The idea with the roller is to get good contact between the roots and the soil, so walking on it is good. Don't make a perfect checkerboard with the sod pieces. If it comes as a roll, that's good. Stagger the pieces and butt them up tight against the next piece of sod. If you have any gaps, fill those with sand and water the sand. Then put more sand in until everything is even. Put the sod down as quickly as you can. Don't let it sit on pallets for a couple days. You can smother the grass in just a few days. You don't need to rinse your mower. Neither of those grasses make viable seed, so you're good there. You do need to change the mowing height for the two. The TTTF should be mowed at your mower's highest setting* while the bermuda should be mowed at the lowest setting. Modern mowers make changing the height pretty easy, so that should not be a problem. *Although it is considered a TTTF, Marathon fescues are dwarfed, meaning that they grow significantly slower than other fescues. If you have Marathon I, II, or III, you can still mow them high but you won't need to mow it as often as the bermuda. The bermuda should be mowed 2x per week once the growing season starts. Marathon can go a couple weeks without mowing. Mowing the bermuda low will keep it the most dense. Bermuda should be fertilized with a high N fertilizer once a month for maximum greening, density, and appearance. Any chemical fertilizer with a high N value is good. For organics you can use urea (technically organic although it is chemically derived) or soybean meal for the highest N values. N values drop off fast after that but there are reports here and there from homeowners who have success growing bermuda using alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) as their only monthly fertilizer. Alfalfa pellets are available at any feed store while soybean meal is not. The app rate for soybean meal is 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. For alfalfa pellets you can go to 20 pounds per 1,000. If you are using organics, you can feed the TTTF the same way. If you are using chemicals, then the front should be fertilized once in May, once in September, and once in November. I realize you were not asking about the fescue, but I got on a roll. Hope the additional reading did not bore you.

Folks here are only going to be able to offer suggestions if you post photos of the rooms. As saypoint said above, post one room/area at a time and then define what you need help with, as in paint colors, rug ideas, window coverings. Make sure you specify what you are keeping so someone doesn't tell you to ditch the couch you just bought. Also, photos need to show the whole room/area and not just a fireplace or one wall. Finally, make sure you know/say how much money you want to spend so people don't recommend ideas outside your range.