Snookums - Thanks, I will reconsider Calcutta. I will be looking for a reminant piece of whatever material vs. full or half slab. The fabricator may be able to find something. Taggie - Yes, I am considering quartz. I am doing Caesarstone Raven in my kitchen and really love the material. I was looking online at Caesarstone Blizzard, Organic White or Pure White. Not sure if that would be too sterile but I do have lots of warm tans in there so maybe it wouldn't be too bad. I understand your point about the challenges of marble. I live alone and the guest bath does not get much use but I'd make sure to seal it well and often.

FYI, a gable is just the wall under the pointy part of the roof. The decorative boards on your garage gable are, I think, battens, which are just pieces of wood that cover up the seams between the wood siding. They are primarily decorative, and if you don't like them, you could probably take them off. (On older Tudor homes, you might see a similar effect created with actual beams, and those would be structural and not just cosmetic). Because your house has the whole California/Mediterranean thing going on, I don't think that highlighting the battens is going to be in keeping with the style of the home, so I would favor painting them to blend in. You could remove them, but you might find that makes the garage gable too plain and boring. As others have suggested, you will have to choose a paint that works with the stone, unless you want to remove the stone. The stone definitely has some of that peachy thing going on, although it has some more muted grays that you could work with. Based on your pics and my images for Waynesboro Taupe (that is, take this with a grain of salt since computers don't always render color right), I don't really like the Waynesboro Taupe with the stone. Here are some colors I liked better: Chelsea Gray Gettysburg Gray Sandy Hook Gray Fairview Taupe Iced Marble (this one runs to blue-gray, which might be too much out on a limb for your neighborhood) I think that you could keep black as an accent color (I like black and taupe together) for the shutters and maybe the front door. I would like to see the garage door go dark, either matching the wall color or even going a few shades darker. The white draws too much attention to what really isn't a great feature of the house (I'm not a fan of prominent garage doors in general, let's not make them stand out more than they have to.) Benjamin Moore's color viewer has a sample picture called "Ageless Tudor" that has some characteristics in common with your home (stone, board and batten gable) that you might want to use for experimenting. Or I think you can upload your own photo, although I can't vouch for how well that works.

This is an interesting project. Buehl has asked a question about a "Layout Help" FAQ. Someone linked this thread as a response to her inquiry. My comments are about considerations for building site acquisition and location. Environmental issues are a concern for me, such as flood plain maps, frequency of flooding. How will flooding impact your commute and access to emergency medical. How does water move through your landscape. Fire hazards. What is the area's typical rainfall/year, and will that impact your site. What are landslide risks. Earthquake risk. Tsunami escape paths and evacuation locations. Is there a local master plan for future growth in the area and what does this look like. Are there any hazardous waste sites nearby.

I’m still not able to find exactly what I need. I either need to find a bracket/hanger that has threads on it to put on the headboard to then slip the end of the frame over or a bracket to attach to the post that accepts hooks so I can buy a kit to convert my bolt on frame to a hook frame. No luck so far :(