I'm in a similar predicament, so I can relate. In a kids' bath I don't think I'd do cararra for the countertop because of etching and staining. I'd do either silestone, soapstone or maybe the cardosa. Instead of white grout, consider doing a gray grout. It doesn't stain and the gray lines give a nice vintage feel, and provide a graphic punch so you might not need to add additional color in the tile. If you search for white subway tile gray grout here I am sure many pics will come up.

buffalotina, The laminate is holding up well... so far no scratches or any other complaints. LOVE the Aura paint! We used it to paint the entire house. The cabinets are painted with Aura Satin and the walls in Matte. I'm very pleased with the Aura paint so far... It's holding up well and any spills wipe up nicely. We primed with the Benjamin Moore Fresh Start, Stain Block primer (waterbased). Their primer was more expensive but went on smoothly and coated much more like a oil based primer, so we felt it was worth the $$$. I have to say that painting the cabinets was a LOT of work! Honestly, more work then I expected. I was also pretty burnt out on painting at that point, as we had just painted every wall, ceiling and trim piece in the house. We sanded before the each coat... and it probably took between 2 and 3 coats to get them perfectly smooth with good thick coverage. I was lucky to have my mom helping, she has painted many cabinets and is quite an experienced painter. It was worth the work in our case, because I didn't want to pay $$$ to have them sprayed... One other thing I noticed about the Aura paint... it stays a little sticky for about a month (only notiecable on the shelves). We painted fire place mantle and built-ins with it too. I asked at the store and they said the Aura takes 30 days to fully cure. So just an FYI if you're painting any shelves.

Thanks for your help. We will stick with the black. Now I have to pick the grout for the glossy 1 inch olive hex floor. We are picking between Oyster Gray which is a bit warmer and Platinum which is a bit cooler but I thought may be nice since the white vanity has honed Carrara. Any thoughts? Thx.

Ok ill be the person that tells you that you cant just do one wall. You will be redoing the entire shower at this point so just plan on it. Trying to fix that one wall and matching those tiles isn't worth it in the end. Also they arent anything but plain field tile that are easily still found. People get this I found a treasure in their head and loose perspective that they aren't anything special. I am not trying to insult you or put the bath down it actually looks like every bath in NYC from that era. Its a nice vintage look but unfortunately you argent saving some rare expensive architectural detail. I would demo the shower area and salvage as many tiles as you can. Order from one of the vendors mentioned above and they will be a close match. i would run the old tile up to the shower door trim centerline. From there I would use the new tile in the shower. Problem is even if the tiles match their will always be a slight mismatch in color. The hardest part of that redo will be the demo. I bet those are set in 2-3" of mud and metal lathe. That is why they went the route they did. Removing those walls without damaging surrounding walls is not easy and not cheap!! Then you have to build your walls out to match the new and old, again not easy and not cheap. This is why these are just torn out and started from scratch. I have done a few of those and it always starts as will just do this one spot and then its to the studs and all new. good luck and plan ahead!