Is your MIL the type to always comment or say something, such as "you look tired" , "you look healthy , you were too skinny before" ( I interpret that as "you look like you gained weight") etc... ? ( btw, I was never skinny in my life, she was backpeddling) Mine is very verbal, although she is a sweet person, she often says too much with no reflexion on her part as to how it will affect the receiver of such comments. I try to learn from that, since I'm a MIL myself, lol...... Say less, not more. The drapes are hanging in your LR for Pete's sake, does she think you'll rip them down based upon her opinion ?

Yellowing is only an issue with white epoxy, correct? Other epoxy colors won't become discolored over time, right? That Laticrete translucent grout is their Plasma product and I have heard too many horror stories about that product. Besides, this is a steam shower so I will be using epoxy grout, urethane type grouts like Plasma aren't recommended for steam showers. A solid surface bench would look cool but I think lucite would have issues. The biggest would be finding one to perfectly match the color of the tile. Another is that it might look weird because the glass tile is backpainted whereas colored lucite (at least all the ones I've seen) has through-body color so I don't know how that would look paired with glass. I think the reason we used mosaic on the bench instead of the subway is because mosaic gives your butt more traction and is less slippery. Same reason large glass tile on the floor is dangerous. From an aesthetic standpoint I would have preferred not to use the mosaic tile anywhere. The white grout on the floor is Fusion Pro so hopefully that will never discolor. Someone please tell me it will never discolor! ;-) The missing red tile is where the control for the steam shower goes. We needed to leave an opening for the control wire.

My husband says it looks like a “safari suit” with all the wood. Thank you for all of your comments- it’s helpful to know I’m not alone in loving the wood. I am definitely implementing some/ most of your suggestions over the coming months- fridge, stools, etc. The microwave is actually broken and previous owners had hacked away at opening to make it fit so we will put in a nice stainless one with trim kit as well. The only wood not in the best shape is the island so either we need to refinish or paint. Thanks again all!

Flooring was finished yesterday and baseboards go in tomorrow. What terrible luck. I don't think we've had one job go perfectly with any profession so far. We can feel a dip in front of fridge area, the most walked in area in the center of the house. I remembered that in my contract for it says "Concrete or any other approved substrate must be flat to within 3/16" in 10 linear feet to achieve best finished appearance of flooring." I measured and it's a 4/16" dip/valley. When I have my son step on it I can see the floor in that area go up and down. I really thought I hired a top notch company and they did a lot of work grinding and adding cement. The installer told me a story of having to go in and fix someone's floor that was professionally installed because slab wasn't level. I trusted them completely-I haven't learned yet. :( I mentioned it to the guy who's doing the job and there is a langauge barrier but he was saying the 3/16" rule was from the whole length of the 10' metal bar he's using and he immediatly said "where, I don't feel anything" and when I told him to get his bar he got it but looked at a different part of the kitchen. I asked him if it could void warranty and showed him my pic of the gap measuring 1`/4" and he said it's a floating floor and the 3/16 was across 10'. I posted here and got a couple responses that the click planks could break later and if not laid correctly I'm out of luck with the warranty co. They need to install baseboards tomorrow and I'm thinking of waiting until the end to tell the boss while I do more research here and call manufacturer to see what they say. Anyone ever have something like this come up? 1 click planks I'm not sure how they could fix this without tearing out the planks in the whole house which sounds like a nightmare, but having probs down the road and being on our own sounds worse. thx!