"I'm not very worried about the traction under foot, as my tiles are textured and hence has excellent traction. The look of the large format tile is what I was going after at the very beginning." Me too - ours have texture and are recommended for many applications, but do make sure you test a couple of yours out before you live with them - wet one down outside or in the garage and stand on it. Maybe even add soap. Move around. Bend over and pretend to pick up the soap. I was OK with them but after doing this a couple of times, my husband felt he definitely could slip (especially as we age) on a 12x24 tile. And he's pretty agile. The tile setter and the GC both recommend more grout lines for safety. The shower floor tiles will be cut a little smaller than the average foot size and the rest of the room will remain large format. I LOVE the large format but made the concession.

Bathroom sinks (vanity) pipe size is 1.25 inches. It's a small hole too, so the strainer or stopper is specifically bathroom-sink-sized. Small = smaller than any other sink's hole (laundry tub, bar, kitchen, etc). The size is standard in the US and Canada (and maybe everywhere else too). Kitchen sinks have a 1.5 inch pipe. And a large size hole. A standard size. Bar sinks always have a 1.5 inch pipe. Bar sinks may or may not have a kitchen sink sized hole or a smaller hole. You can call a couple manufacturers like Franke and get them to guide you to the bar sinks that have small holes. Or... You can web search for bar sinks with small holes, but it is difficult. This is because search engines cannot figure out what to do with inches (or " ) and most manufacturers don't write inches in longhand form. There are more details to know, if you wish. Here are a few more. The pipe that comes out of the sink is called a sink tailpiece, and this can cause some confusion because the P trap also has a pipe coming out of it called a tailpiece (or, a P-trap tailpiece, to be explicit and precise). Also, the pipe that comes out of the sink is "tubular" and that is the one key word you need to use when you go a-web-searching. Plug these words into a search engine and see images showing pipes under a sink. E.g. tubular continuous outlet E.g. tubular end outlet After the P trap, the name of the pipe TYPE changes: it is DWV and no longer tubular. Wow. -- Bathroom sinks often have a pop up stopper or something. Kitchen sinks can have this but it's seldom seen. -- Bathroom strainers are good to catch hair. Hair does not decompose. Not fast. You want to remove hair manually instead of putting it down the drain because it just clogs the drain somewhere, unless you are lucky with the geometry of your drain. Bathroom sinks with a pop up stopper have a hair strainer inside, and one unscrews the thingie from time to time in order to remove the hair and gunk caught on the hair. -- If I had your two sinks I might install the sinks and have the stone overhang a lot. A bathroom is a lot cleaner than a kitchen: it's only skin cells and hair. So underneath the overhang there is no big splash of grease and compound organic rotting stuff. Even in a kitchen, a sink overhang is not a problem, for me. Stainless can be re-polished and this changes the surface which changes its characteristics and properties. The sinks may be repolished by any handyman. Or by you. If you get a stainless steel shop to mold you a two tier counter top they can weld these sinks into the counter and repolish them to suit the water bead test. I have in mind a two tier counter with a little swooping curve not a discontinuity. This might be good. It might to get water to flow off the upper part of the counter if your cats let water get anywhere. I know of cats that use a drain as a urinal and then rinse it out after use. Urine left stagnant in the P trap is bad for the pipe; it needs to be rinsed out or diluted a great deal. Hth

Great input. Thanks. We do have a (fuzzy) copy of the plans, but I don't see anything in the basement indicating where plumbing lines may go. Perhaps we're not far enough along in the process to have those drawings yet. This is the biggest reason why I have so many questions - it seems standard procedure to choose a list of options and sign a contract before actually being served any details on the options. And, if we hadn't had such an odd experience with the capped PVC in our current basement, I probably wouldn't have any concerns at all with the promise of a rough-in. *I should also add that we are actually asking these questions of the sales staff, but obtaining answers has been time-consuming. We're less than the 10th sale, so I suspect they just haven't compiled the answers yet.

More about this drain, It installs easily, has its pros cons. I like that it sets flat on subfloor and gets screwed in ( this could be done in slab too). The green Protective tape is heavy duty and great up until you have to tear it off to do this. The cons being the clamping flange and screws( which BTW is why i used this drain). The flange itself has over 20 screw holes, They are not beveled out and the screws when snugged tite set a good 1/16th above flange and dont seat well. the flange itself needed a good de-burring. It gets the job done and clamps tightly. I went ahead and used some membrane on top of the screws and under my tile edge as a sleep well measure. At nearly 3/4 the cost of a good stainless drain id say its benefit is the clamping flange, even if its lacking. It plays nice with the USG durock shower system and I was able to get both of my MFG reps support using the 2 together (another reason i chose this drain).