I'd also agree that the house colors are not bold, and you could pretty much use whatever plant combinations and colors you prefer. Given your inland LA location and the fact that you get very hot in summer, are always on the dry side, and also get strong Santa Ana winds, I would suggest that any plants your select ought to be chosen with all that in mind, and resist the worst that your location dishes out. Also, it is extremely easy to get plants that will bloom nearly all year long in this environment, and selecting plants that have intense colors to hold up to that bright LA sun is not hard to do either. The blues of the Agave americana can easily be supplemented by other blue foliaged tough plants such as the Blue Hesper Palm/Brahea armata, or Brahea 'Clara'. The Bismarck Palm, Bismarckia nobilis in its blue/silver form could also look stunning. Other Agaves such as A. parryi would also love these conditions. If the deep red flowers appeal to you, something like the Coral Tree, Erythrina x bidwillii, which is actually more of a large shrub, and can bloom nearly 10 months of the year in southern California is going to give more impact colorwise than any rose. A deep purple-red foliage plant that would also love your heat, but is deciduous in winter, might include the Purple Smoke Bush, Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple'. Other shrubs such as Lantana, Tecomaria capensis in its various color forms, Tecoma x smithii, Tecoma stans can all give months of solid color under heat, drought and wind, in shades from yellows, golds, peach, orange, pink, rose, red tones. I'd suggest staying away from things such as the bananas and the Phormiums, because both can look wind and heat stressed under dry windy inland locations, and in fact, Phormiums need some protection from hot sun to avoid bleaching and burnt foliage. Ensete ventricosum 'Maurellii' the Red Abyssinian Banana in Kim's photo will also look windwhipped in inland southern California unless grown in a very wind protected location. A visit to the Los Angeles Arboretum or the Huntington Botanic Garden could give you lots more ideas of great plants for your location. I love the look of your Brazilian Silk Floss Tree in the front, and you could also play off the fall flowers of this tree with more hot pink/fuchsia flowers from things like Calandrinia spectabilis or Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid' or Callistemon 'Mauve Mist'. Calliandra californica or C. tweedii, could also be quite floriferous, drought tolerant hot sun plants in your setting.

If the difference in color is due to the slabs having been in the sun, then won't the rest of the counter later lighten to match? It is all exposed to light now. I would worry that repolishing the tops in the shop won't produce as good a surface as they have now because the shop doesn't have the tools that are used for polishing large surfaces that they slab producer had. splais, it looks to me like your foot is still in your mouth - now you are saying that Inerseian was careless in selecting the stone? When placing templates on stone, there are a lot of things to consider - sometimes one accepts less match in one place to get a better match elsewhere or to display the part of the stone one wants in a prominent place. Ineresian's counter looks great and I can understand the choice that was made there. One leg of our L is almost as long as the length of our slabs and the other leg was about as long as the length plus width of them so the only way to do the L with only one seam was to have the seam at the sink with the lengths of the slabs at right angles - no book match possible there. Also, we wanted to position the slabs on the stone to have a match between the counters of the L's and the backsplash pieces and we needed a couple of other long pieces placed for our window sill and outside counter. We were able to position the two sides of the seam where the granite movement was swirly so the lack of a grain match doesn't stand out but there is a bit of a color shift at the seam. A few inches of not perfect match on the seam was worth it to us to not have an extra seam and to have matches the other places we wanted. We spent a few hours with the fabricator placing the template on the slabs and getting all the pieces to fit.

I think you should go a little bit darker than your tile. The grout always dries a lighter shade than the little sample pieces they have at the tile store. I don't understand why the samples show the color that the grout is when it is WET. In reality, the grout will dry to a significantly lighter shade. Also, a darker grout color will show dirt more. Sealing helps, but are you really going to do it regularly? I would choose a color to go with the darker parts of your tile. Also, if you have a lot of floor and the look really matters, buy a little bit of grout and actually use it with four tiles. See the color it dries. Grout is pretty cheap. Smallest size should be under $10.

Yes we did this. We had a pool concrete shower (concrete, with pool waterproofing, concrete stain was used to add some pattern/color) put in. I was hoping it was a forever shower. But unfortunately it cracked along the line between the cement panels. I think the installers must not have put enough screws into the durock underlayment and/or perhaps not mesh taped them. We used clear caulk to caulk the line and it is water proof but we are going to pull the whole thing out and go with large format tile. If they had done a good job we would be keeping it as it is the lowest possible maintenance. No grout at all. We just had another bathroom done with new tile and I had to watch like a hawk. They used drywall screws so I went back and added deck screws between each screw. They tiler wanted to skip the fiberglass mesh tape so I popped in with my own roll and asked it be used. I asked where they intended to caulk. The answer was in some places but not others and I asked for all the changes of plane and materials. Basically you have to know everything about how something is supposed to go in and then check every step of the way.