hollysprings, thanks for the info. i decided to take the risk anyway because i am too tired to look for a new tile. (I chose all the other tiles to work with this particular color and already installed the floor tiles, sigh...). hopefully i will not regret it later.. knock on wood! kmcg, i had talked to WZ previously and they told me that it was fine to use the crackle tile on the shower walls, just not the floors. at any rate, i can't imagine it could be any worse than marble, which requires some upkeep and sealing, but doesn't prevent people from using it anyhow. but maybe i am just rationalizing my own decision, LOL! FWIW, the vibe crackle tile seems to have a thick and durable glaze over the top and sides, so the surface is completely smooth. i have left my sample tile in a bag with a bunch of stones and other tiles and taken it around with me to various stores and no scratches on it at all, though the bag actually put a huge scratch on my table when i set it down! HTH! zen, one idea i think i am going to do for my shower now, is instead of a panel, do a fat vertical stripe of the arabesque down the wall. if i can find some pics of this design, i will post for you. good luck!

thanks to all who have posted so far, especially Eric. We can probably save/budget down the road for a kitchen redo, or do part of it ourselves. Additions would be a little harder for us except finish work (floors, tile, etc. Can do drywall even but would need to find time to do it). What that kitchen has is a U shaped layout, not too bad except there are overhanging cabinets between a small dining/family space and the kitchen. It's a counter/pass through kind of setup where someone can sit at stools and talk with the person in the kitchen....except the cabinets hang down so the person in the kitchen has to look under them. We would likely tear those out and relocate the stovetop to the perimeter wall and make that pass through an island. Then that entire space could become kitchen/dining. It is possible we could still move out a wall on that (kitchen) side of the house down the road too, we are in Hawaii so all the construction costs are much, much higher than mainland. So jealous of all the posters here who can put on a large extension for less than 50K. Plan A or Plan B will cost us about the same. We don't plan to sell and move anytime soon, but should we need to we're leaning toward sq. footage instead of just extending current bath and upgrading the kitchen. Our neighborhood is about 20 years old so people are beginning to redo those rooms as the fixtures and appliances are ageing. We redid all the appliances about three years ago with stainless finishes, new faucet/sink, and redid the countertop Corian, so the kitchen is livable - just need to clear out some clutter and make smarter usage on available storage space. We could paint or restain the cabinet doors to freshen it up. A few neighbors are creating the "big bang" kitchen now but I'm not certain a 70K upgrade will improve the value that much as a new neighborhood is planned about 5 miles away within the next couple of years. Would we love to live in a "WOW" kitchen, of course. But as with most people we have to make a decision on where it is best to spend the money for now. We could feasibly also add on a 2nd story in future years, but we prefer the single story and if we age-in-place as planned, the new bath will include wide accesses and no-curb shower.

Just to be different - I wouldn't. But, I have to admit that it is my own personal icky bias. Our cabinets, counters everything in the bathrooms are different than in the kitchen. Why? Because the thought of doing "bathroom business" in the bathroom and then coming into the kitchen to do "food and cooking business" and seeing the same stuff is, to me (IMHO), just icky.

I used Whisper Gray Tile Shop grout and it's perfect. It is the lightest gray available. I grouted a demo sheet myself first to check it out. Great $20 spent to try a grout color before you commit!! You aren't supposed to use Sanded Grout for Polished stones as it could scratch them. We ended up doing it anyway (not heeding my own advice I guess) but our Tile Guy was very careful with a sponge and delicate. Sanded grout holds better than Unsanded also. On our honed floor we also did sanded. So for my master if I have this dilemma, I would go Epoxy grout. More $ but best choice. My bathroom I'll share pictures of will hardly be used (off a bonus room, not any bedroom).