We have it in our master and guest for two very different looks. Every person who uses the shower in either room comments on how great it is under foot. In the master we used a light color that matches the considerable amount of Botticino on the walls perfectly, so the look is subtle but lends a contemporary edge. Still it is so great under foot and complements the exceedingly classic Bottcino so well I can't see it dating - it is not a strong enough statement as used. Our guest bathroom is one big statement - lol. My vision for it was a stream through the wood because it opens to the outside and I wanted it to feel like you could be outside. I found an amazing bronze vessel sink with dragonflies that became my design muse. It is a long narrow room with the shower at the end. The entire bathroom floor is river rock. In this room the shower walls are slate and the river rocks are a multi mix that matches well. The installations was not the best - seeing Bill's picture makes me cringe a bit. It isn't horrible but I wasn't there for it - miscommunication of timing - and the grout was not cleared away as much as it should have been. ALso I used Costco pebbles for this bath and it was not as high quality - the stones were not as dense per sheet as the higher cost. I am still happy with the overall look. In some ways while aesthetically I notice it could be a bit better, practically it works better for people using the bathroom who have heeled shoes. But it does take someone with some experience with river rock to install it well. I supervised the master bath and it is much better. As far as cleaning - we have had it a year now and it still looks great - it is unsealed and really doesn't take much effort at all. In the master we use oxy clean to keep the lighter grout looking good but the rocks don't seem to require anything special. We don't use bath products with much residue but it doesn't seem that upkeep is necessarily a big concern with using river rock.

I found a product called "Rejuvenate" Tile & Grout Cleaner in a local hardware store. Spray it on,(no scrubbing) then wipe, it works by enzymes and is re-activated every time you damp-mop your tile. I have tile in my bathroom, not marble, just some kind of stone tile. We had bathroom remodeled in 2005. The Rejuvewnate keeps it looking good.

Tile and grout are NOT the waterproofing parts of your shower. The waterproofing layer is under the tile and grout. If that was done properly you have nothing to worry about!

"He said it passed the flood test and when the new curb and pan were built a new slope was built into the new shower pan." Could be semantics...could be poor grammar...could be obfuscation, however: 1) ",,,it passed the flood test..." Well whoop-dee-doo. Does that simply mean that it didn't leak? It should also mean that the water drains quickly and cleanly, with no water puddles left on the membrane. 2) "...a new slope was built into the new shower pan." "Into the shower pan" versus "under the shower pan". Who knows. Different terminology, semantics, wordsmithing. Again, it could have been done correctly or this could just be careful language. However, the sloped mud preslope should have been installed on the flat subfloor. The membrane should have then been placed on the sloped preslope. This way, the membrane itself is sloped to the drain. That is a building code requirement. On top of the sloped membrane goes another layer of mud. The tile gets thinsetted to the second layer of mud. Most water retention problems in mud bases are due to the membrane being placed flat on the subfloor and single layer of sloped mud being installed on top of the flat membrane, with the tile going on top of that single layer of sloped mud. Again, that is a code violation. With regular use of the shower, any mud layer on top of the membrane will indeed always hold some moisture. But if the membrane is sloped as it should be, excessive moisture in the mud bed will follow the slope of the membrane to the drain and exit the mud bed via the secondary weep holes in the drain. If the membrane is flat on the floor, then the mud bed can become saturated with standing water. The excessive buildup of moisture can turn into a mess. Big question, find out if the membrane itself is sloped. Choose your wording carefully. If you ask "was the membrane itself sloped, because if you didn't slope it, that's a code violation and you'll have to rip it out and rebuild it at your cost" they may just answer "yes". If you ask "can you tell me how the shower base was built, from subfloor-to-tile", you may get a better answer. Maybe they did slope the membrane. Maybe they didn't. Regardless, good luck with it all.