Photos of your actual room would help immensely.

Thanks--unfortunately it is just open walls right now! I can post some as it starts to take shape as a bathroom, but likely need to make a decision before then.

Okay, I am thinking of doing a mint green, and black bathroom with white hex floor with black dots. I have looked at many pictures. Most have white console sinks. A few have mint tiled countertops. A couple have mint toilets, sinks or bathtubs. If you have a black accent strip bottom soapstone for curb( I plan to have a black skirted tile piece at the floor a rim of black hex on floor bleeding into white with the black dots). Marble or soapstone either would work for the counter.

@john3582 We contemplated the tile counter for the sink--we do have enough extra tile to do it--but decided we didn't want grout lines near the water in the end. I do think it looks more period but we opted for function over form there. Our floor will just be plain white hex (since sadly I was the only pro-dots person in the house!) I would have preferred a console or pedestal sink but the vanity is the only storage in the room so again, function won out. (Our existing bathroom does have one, but also has room for a high cabinet.)

How is soapstone with water? That would be my choice. Or do matching tile on the curb and pony wall and marble on the vanity.

@houssaon We put soapstone in our kitchen a decade ago and it's been good with water--the stone in our kitchen is softer than what we would put in the bathroom but we otherwise like it. We do have enough 4x4 trim tiles to tile the curb and wall top if needed but I wasn't loving the idea of grout there--but it might match better that way. The shower will have a glass enclosure that sits on those two surfaces.

I would pick soapstone if that is generally the pattern for your tiles ... Black is trimming everything, so a black would make sense for the threshhold and top of ponywall. Vanity is harder to say without more of an image of what it'll look like. I don't think they necessarily have to match, but again, hard to say without seeing the space.

Here's the vanity itself, in case that helps:

They sell it with either white quartz or this marble top, but we got it sans counter since we hadn't figured out the counter plan yet (and thought this marble was too gray to play with the green/black, while the white quartz felt too modern). We have a more traditional faucet, will be swapping out the hardware for something less modern, and will have a rectangular sink. It is about 3' across a small room from the shower.

I really like the soapstone idea. I think it would be a bold addition to that vanity.

Check out my bath profile I have one piece of marble in my traditional bath (as a base for a niche) and it's okay, but does get some staining. I have a soapstone counter.

FYI, we did our threshold from wood to traditional tile with wood that matches. I am happy with that as it looks better from the vantage point being outside the bathroom.

What about black granite?

I agree with you regarding a good counter. A pain to clean and uneven, so things top over. I think the soapstone will have a cooler vintage vibe then black granite. It's fairly soft, but so is marble. And it won't react with an.trying spilled on it. Planning on X shaped faucets with a an H and a C on each?

Corian outperforms marble, particularly in a bathroom.

Honed "Absolute Black " granite is readily available, even in remnants. That or soapstone, are both fine.

I like the idea of black, especially with the white floor. You could also look at Jet Mist (also called Virginia Mist) or Elegant Gray granite. Both can give a soapstone look.

Both soap stone and marble are soft and prone to staining. I have soapstone kitchen counters and they work well and now have a nice patina - I wanted them because they show wear and water spots as I like that in a kitchen, but I wouldn't want than in a bathroom. In a bathroom I think it's best to avoid natural stone and I'd go with a manufactured stone. I used that on my shower curb and it looks great and you can get it in all sorts of colors.

Thanks, all! @john3582, I lobbied hard for the cross handles on the sink, but lost that one to function over form too, so they will be levers. But the shower will have cross handles, so there's that.

Thanks for the suggestions of granite/manufactured stone--I will go check those out this week. We haven't had water staining problems with the Barroca soapstone in our kitchen (though have other issues with how soft it is--I got a quote from the same people who installed it and asked for something harder, so they suggested Stormy Black) but will also dig into that a bit more too. That is one of my worries about marble, though.

Using a wood threshold is a backup plan, but I've had trouble finding something that matches our flooring (rift sawn white oak). Our existing bathroom has a basic big box red oak threshold but it's so clearly a different wood that it makes me crazy to look at--I'd rather it be something different entirely than almost but not quite match. I will look again to see if I can find some white oak options that are closer, though. (We are also having the wood in other areas of the house refinished at the end of this project, so could wait and ask the flooring people to do it--I think our GC mainly needs to know now to see if/how it affects tiling.)

Yes to a plain marble threshold. I have a home built in the 1930s and that was the standard transition for all our bathrooms from tiled bath floor to wooden hall floor, regardless of the color of the tile (peach, green, gray, etc.)

I misspoke earlier when I said threshhold ... I meant the shower curb when I said black made sense with the tiling pattern shown.

However, our marble threshhold to our hall bath is more-or-less matched to the tile. It's not original, though. (Old house, newer bathroom ... original bathroom was not livable when redone.) Wood floor is original.

Oh, and counter is white and cream corian.

Marble is really nice when used for thresholds and sills; it can give a great "period" look in an older home and can also look contemporary in some bathrooms. When I was doing my bathrooms I decided to go with "engineered stone" because I had a basic white pallet and it was easily available and economical. I used it for a shower curb, shelves, theresholds, and for window sills and trim. It doesn't have the visual interest of marble, but that was the point.