I just recently had to make that same decision...and I went with a Sterling tub and 3 pc surround in my 1930 home. Main reasons: 1. Tile was there before (c.1966) and caused a water leak that caused a quite large piece of plaster to fall from my kitchen ceiling...granted they didn't install tile back with a good backer board. 2. I had to get rid of the 1966 cast iron tub...it was not in good enough condition to keep. 3. I wanted a larger soaking tub...my cast iron was small! The Sterling tub is 18" tall and very wide...and has arm rests. 4. This was the hall bath. In a master bath, I would probably have gone with a tile surround. 5. My budget on this bathroom was small....as the kitchen is coming up in January and that's where I want to put my $ So far, I love my Sterling tub/surround. And since I mainly take showers, my plumber raised the water controls up about a foot or so. I never would have thought to do that....but it's GREAT. Even my 11 year old son mentioned how he likes it better higher. Here is a picture below. KOMPY

niteshadepromises - Now that I see your roof plan, I remember your lot and its design issues from when you first posted about it months ago. A VERY difficult space to work with indeed. Having looked at your roof plan, I agree that your architect DID provide a drainage route for every point on the roof. The spot that I was originally worried about (marked with a red X below) is intended to drain toward the front of the house and fall off the roof right where that ladder is leaned up against the house in the very last picture you posted. So that's good but... I still see two problems, one with the roof as designed and one with the roof as it was actually built: First, EVERY portion of the roof that I've shaded in green on the drawing above is ALSO designed to drain at exactly the same spot! Without exact dimensions, I can't calculate the total roof area that will drain toward that approximately 2 ft wide edge of the roof. But, assuming that the secondary bathroom that is visible thru the roof plan is approximately 40 sq ft, I would guesstimate that the sections of roof that are shaded green cover about 1000 sq ft of floor space. Did your architect discuss with you or have you thought about what having that much roof drain to one location is going to mean when it rains? The national weather service describes any rain up to 0.3 inches/hour as merely a moderate rain. Anything over 0.3 inches per hour is considered heavy. And if you search the internet, you will find plenty of stories about thunderstorms dropping 4 and 5 inches of rain in an hour and you'll even find some stories about even heavier amounts of rain falling in an hour. Obviously then, it is probably not terribly unusual for a heavy rain to drop 0.5 to 1 inches of rain in an hour. 1/2 inch of rain falling on 1000 sq ft in one hour would be over 300 gallons of water that has to drain in one hour. 1 inch would be over 600 gallons and so on. Let's say you get a storm that drops 0.5 inch of rain over a one hour period. That means you are going to have 300 gallons of rainwater pouring off of your roof at that one narrow roof edge in a single hour. 300 gallons per hour is 5 gallons per minute. That's twice the flow rate of a shower head. And it's going to be coming down as a sheet of water against that very short section of rain guttering. And, what if you get a cloudburst that drops that same 1/2 inch of rain in a 15 minute period? It happens....a lot! (I live in central Texas and we don't get that much rain...barely 30 inches a year...but just a couple of days ago we got 3/4 of an inch of rain in a 20 minute period followed by another half inch in less than an hour a little later the same day. And I've seen worse storms.) If you get 1/2 inch of rain in a 15 minute period, for that 15 minute period, water is going to be pouring off your roof at that one spot at a rate of 20 gallons per minute!!!! Will that short section of gutter be able to channel that much water that fast? Remember too that water weighs 8 lbs per gallon so 20 gallons weighs 160 lbs. I would be surprised if that much water did not simply tear the gutters lose completely. And, if the rain either overflows your gutters (or tears them loose completely) all of that water is going to be pouring down from a height of about 10 feet and hitting the ground just a few feet from your front door. Imagine the size of the splash it is likely to make... and the hole that the falling rain is going to dig. With your door so close, it is going get covered with mud. And there is no way you would be able to open the door during a heavy rainstorm without water splashing into the house. And that is the problem I see with the roof "as it was originally designed." Problem number 2 is that the original roof design has obviously been altered by the addition of that cupola/turret that is not shown on the original roof plan. (I'm actually curious as to exactly how the cupola is supported but that is a different issue entirely.) And, did your architect also sign off on the addition of the cupola to the roof? Anyway, here's the issue: While it is hard to tell from the pictures just how big the cupola is, I'm guessing that it is located directly over the circular staircase and therefore has the same diameter as the staircase. I'm guessing that because, as a design feature, having the cupola smaller than the staircase simply would not look terribly good. If I'm right about the size and location of the cupola, then from the roof diagram, it looks like the staircase (and thus the cupola) sits where I've shown the yellow circle in the diagram below. Notice how the yellow circle cuts off the red drainage line I had before. In fact, all rain draining from the entire area I've reshaded to purple is going to be at least partially blocked by the cupola. It will have to be diverted into that narrow space between the edge of the cupola and the edge of the roof that is directly to the left of the cupola on the diagram. The purple section looks to cover about 200 sq feet. A half inch of rain in an hour falling on a 200 sq ft area would add up to t0 about 60 gallons of water. That 60 gallons is going to have between the edge of the cupola and that roof immediately to the left. 60 gallons is the equivalent of a bathtub full of water. Worse, if anything at all (a few twigs and leaves or an old bird's nest) should happen to fall on the roof and get washed by a light rain down towards that narrow V, it is likely to become lodged in the V and basically create a dam to hold water back. Then you're going to have rain water collecting up against the back side of the cupola until it gets deep enough to find an alternate route down. And, when the rain ends, some water is going to remain pooled in that V. I really hate to say it but I foresee significant roof problems ahead. I hope I'm wrong but...

Thanks kippy, yes my mom is going to make cushions. Pal I guess you're right about the floor but the old fireplace covered the floor corner between the hearth and the wall. So it is unfinished wood. So it would be less work to cover it back up again and I think if I stained/varnished it that it would never look completely right anyway. What do you think of the style I posted? My house is a typical McMansion neo eclectic so it doesn't have a lot of style direction one way or another. Annie everyone I've spoken to about the crown thinks that I would for sure have to do the whole wall over and possibly the whole room if I mess w the crown. And I'm not thrilled with the look right now anyway. Though taking out the rough hewn beams and lion heads lightened things up, the whole space feels so so heavy to me.

This should have been decided long ago and where exctly is the stone being applied? I really dislike stone just stuck on a house IMO stone should always look like part of the structure so only added where real stone would have been needed I need to see the entry much closer and why was that other door not put around the side/ Not familiar with "mandoors" but that one reallt takes awy from the front of the house but then so does the giant garage that looks bigger than the house. Back to the stone where are the drawings from the architect for the exterior?and honestly do you need the driveway past the garage door landscping is going to be a big part of the curb appeal and driveways are rarely attractive as part of landscaping